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| More Fees to avoid deeper FLDOC cuts |
| By Aaron Deslatte - Orlando Sentinel |
| Published: 03/26/2009 |
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TALLAHASSEE -- As Florida Senate budget-writers started rolling out their proposed 2009-10 spending cuts Tuesday afternoon, courts and prisons appeared to get off easy, absorbing a relatively paltry 2.8 percent reduction. In fact, courts wouldn't get cut at all. Senate Civil and Criminal Justice budget chief Victor Crist, R-Tampa, said budget chairs had been directed to deliver budget cuts this week amounting to 8 percent -- half the $3 billion deficit the state is facing -- and the chamber's leaders would plug the rest of the hole, likely with tax hikes on cigarettes and businesses, and a gambling expansion. That 8 percent cut amounts to $308 million, but will be further reduced thanks to plans to again increase court fees -- in particular, Gov. Charlie Crist's pitch to raise $199 million through various court fees like a higher filing fee for lengthy civil litigation. Corrections would face the biggest whack, $50.5 million in reductions that Sen. Crist said the chamber "would probably have to back off from" down the road. Crist said he understood the third-largest prison system in the nation likely couldn't absorb more than $25 million in cuts without being forced to release prisoners into the streets, so lawmakers would try to scale back the cuts. One way to save money, by Crist's logic: privatizing another new prison, saving $2 million, he said. The state is slated to build three new prisons to keep pace with the rate of incarcerations. All told, courts, state attorneys, public defenders and prisons absorb roughly $109 million in cuts next fiscal year. It isn't all roses, though, for court clerks, which see their budgets cut 10 percent under the Senate budget plan. "Over the last 24 months, the courts, the state attorneys have been hit somewhere between 10 and 12 percent," the Senate committee chair said. "The clerks have not because their workload has been dramatically increasing." Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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