The announcement yesterday from the Governor’s Budget Office that funding to civil legal aid is being cut by 10% is devastating news. Because the immediate cut occurs half way into the fiscal year, spending of state funds for the remainder of the fiscal year will now have to be cut by 20%.

On August 23 the New York Times published an editorial entitled, Addressing the Justice Gap on its website.

This editorial discusses the current situation in America where experts estimate that four-fifths of low-income people have no access to a lawyer when they need one. This coupled with research showing that litigants representing themselves often fare less well than those with lawyers, creates a "justice gap" that falls heavily on the poor.

From Sam Milkes on the PLAN Blog:

Wednesday night, the state budget was adopted by the House, following Tuesday’s Senate vote. This sends the budget to the Governor, who has signed it. Legal services funding is cut by $274,000, plus a cut of $30,000 due to a freeze of funding occurring during the 2010-11 fiscal year. Combined, this is a cut of 10% from last year’s appropriation of $3.039 million. The Governor had proposed funding at $3.009 million. We were disappointed to witness a cut in our funding but pleased to see continuing support for funding legal services programs, particularly in such a tight budget year. This action is combined with federal social services block grant funding the state appropriates, which stayed the same, at $5.049 million and it is combined with cuts in some one-time stimulus funding that will not continue into fiscal year 2011-12.

By a vote of 187-14, the House also concurred in the Senate’s amendment to HB 38, which extends the sunset on the supplemental filing fee, funding legal services and the courts, to December 31, 2014. Without this action, this fee would have expired in January 2012. With the fee, there will be an additional $1 to 1.3 million of funding to legal services from what was projected with the January sunset. We had hoped to accomplish a complete lifting of the sunset on the supplemental fee and the sunset on the original fee (that sunset is October 2012) but are pleased that this action removes some of the pressure and uncertainties from the FY 2011-12 funding picture.

From Sam Milkes on the PLAN blog:

The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts has published  a News Release stating that Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille today praised the PA Legal Aid Network for the positive performance audit received from the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee yesterday on its oversight of Access to Justice funds.

He also strongly agreed with the audit’s finding that the funding sources for legal aid for the state’s most vulnerable citizens – those who don’t have the financial means to access the courts – should be made permanent.

Click on the title above to read the full blog entry and News Release.

From Sam Milkes on the PLAN blog:

I’m pleased to report that today, the Performance Audit of Pennsylvania's Access to Justice Act (AJA) by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee was released.

This very in depth study of the operations of the IOLTA Board, PLAN, Inc. and the legal aid programs involved many hours of review, beginning in early December. It is really gratifying that this independent legislative body found the legal aid system to be well run.

The full report, which is one hundred pages long, can be found at the link below. A one-page Report Highlights document is also available at the corresponding link below.

From Sam Milkes on the PLAN Blog

As evidenced by the widely published AP article linked below, the current GOP budget plan would result in cuts to a number of human services including legal aid provided by the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network.

PLAN is working closely with the Pa. Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Pa. Coalition Against Rape, to make it clear there have never been allegations of waste, fraud and abuse about our programs and the cuts proposed for our programs are simple cuts in services, not cost savings that we can absorb.

We are still working to try to reinstate the amount of cuts to these programs and haven’t given up on trying to have the budget amended while still in the House.

Below is the article that was published in the February 2011 Attorney E-Newsletter of the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania:

Civil Legal Aid In Pennsylvania

By Sam Milkes, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, Inc., and Alfred Azen, Executive Director, Pennsylvania IOLTA Board