No Budget "Deal," But It's Getting Done

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UPDATE: The House just concurred in Senate amendments to the filing fee bill by a vote of 136 – 60. All we need now is the Governor’s signature for the fee bill to be finalized, and we expect no problems there.

It's kind of funny.  At a recent news conference, Democratic House leaders disagreed as to whether there was a budget deal or not with the Senate.  Some used that term and some were unwilling to.  But call it a deal or not, it looks like the budget is about to get done, probably in the next couple of days.  In my last blog, I attached the Senate's spreadsheet on its budget allocations.  It is possible there will be some minor tinkering with some individual lines, but this looks to be the budget that will get adopted.

Assuming this is the budget for 2009-2010, legal services comes out okay.  We had hoped to see an appropriation for legal services at the same level as that appropriated last year, and this was the Governor's number in his budget proposal:  $3.172 million.  However, the Senate factored in the $100,000 freeze of funds that we experienced last year (as a part of the reduction of funding to many programs, in light of the fact that tax revenues last fiscal year fell well behind projected revenues when the budget was adopted), which had reduced us to an actual funding level of $3.072 million last year.  It is frustrating that a reduction from our actual appropriation last year would get incorporated into this year's funding, but it did.  And then there is an additional factor.  Somehow, even though the freeze was $100,000, our funding this year is reduced by $108,000 from last year's appropriation, leaving us in the Senate budget at $3.064 million.  This is what we expect will be our final number, and we should know for certain in the next few days, with the formal adoption of the budget.  In these times, an appropriation essentially at last year's level is pretty good news.

The Filing Fee Bill    

The House is likely to concur today to House Bill 1607, a bill the Senate amended and passed on Monday, the 5th.  If the House does so, the fee bill will become final, once it has the Governor's signature.  This version of the fees is quite different from the version passed by the House, in House Bill 1861.  In the Senate's version, the temporary filing fee for legal services is reduced from the House amount of $2.65 to the Senate amount of $1.  The temporary fees for the Courts are reduced from the House amount of $12.35 to the Senate amount of $10.25.  These fees are temporary, for 25 months.  Estimates are that they will generate $2.8 million annually, for each dollar collected.  The new fee to the District Attorney salaries is a permanent fee and is actually increased from the House version of $2 to the  Senate version of $2.25.  The fee that was set for domestic violence shelters has been completely eliminated.  While it is disappointing that we will not be able to reach the House amount, which is intended to make up most of the $10 million annual shortfall in IOLTA funding (coupled with $1.5 million of new revenues from the $25 assessment on attorney registrations), the additional funding in these difficult times is still greatly appreciated.  We also expect to work out the one glitch caused in the Senate version of the bill.  Their amended language did not include our original language that allowed fees collected in this fiscal year to be available this fiscal year.  So the temporary fee could be collected this fiscal year but not available until next fiscal year.  There is a strong will in the House and the Senate to get this corrected, even if some language might have to be inserted into a future bill.  For now, we are hopeful this can be worked out administratively with the State, and we’ll be trying to do that before seeking legislation.  My expectation is that this issue will get resolved, but I felt I needed to explain it now, so there are no surprises.

All in all, it's not everything we hoped for, and at times expected we'd get to, but this is generally good news for the funding of legal services in these tight times.