A.G. Gancarski
The Jacksonville mayor’s office budget reviews continued bright and early Wednesday morning, with budgets for the judicial system subjected to the scrutiny of Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa and Chief Financial Officer Mike Weinstein.
The excitement in the room was palpable. Below, just a few of the highlights:
- General liability went up; there were a lot of slip-and-fall incidents at the courthouse, related to the flooring. Some of it, apparently, is outside also. The courthouse is the gift that keeps on giving.
- Copy machines and printing costs, apparently, are up due to machines breaking down. With 52 courtrooms, there is a lot of paper to print. The move has been to lease machines, given replacement costs.
- Teen court programs saw fines down $16,000 year over year. The fund gets $55,000 of Jax Journey funds also.
- Apparently, the computer towers in the judges’ offices are not going to be replaced; they will be going over to tablets. Like the rest of the world.
- Juvenile Drug Court doesn’t have funding for operating expenses in the budget; even without money for operating expenses, they are $34,937 short. The options: the General Fund makes up the difference, cutting people from the activity, or reallocation from other departments. There was pushback on moving money from other funds. Meanwhile, so many kids are programmed into this, with drug tests and monitoring. Sixteen kids would not be able to come into the program without this money, Joe Stelma said, which would not keep them drug free according to court parameters. Weinstein suggested this could be a Journey funding issue. Currently, money for this comes from grants and the $65 fee from consumers of the service. The program has been closed down for a year because of lack of funding in recent history. Apparently, the program works: the recidivism rate is the lowest in the nation, according to American University. Mousa was sold: this allocation will be moved to the “short list” of budget enhancements.
- Speaking of enhancements, contract attorneys are requested for backlogs, including in death penalty cases (which are now an issue with the Supreme Court). There are 800 motions pending, with people saying they are being held illegally. Apparently, this isn’t optimal. This has been represented as moving money from one fund to another to pay these folks. This was approved last year as a one-time expense. However, it’s not a one-time need. And there’s no excess money in other funds to move. There also is a lot of turnover and vacancy; even on the full-time staff, five attorneys are looking for work. It saves money, as they get jobbed out of benefits and pension, and are just there to do the work of addressing the substantial backlog in the system.
- The 8th Circuit, in Alachua, does not have a backlog; in part, because they don’t have the crime problem Jacksonville does. Perhaps people in Jacksonville are more criminally inclined?
- As well, new furniture is needed for the courthouse. $15,000 will be moved from somewhere for that.
- Despite the opulent courthouse, court administration basically poor-mouthed on operation costs. “In terms of large-dollar counties, we’re kind of at the low end.”
- Mousa noted that “we’re so upside down that we can’t recommend to our mayor these enhancements.”
