Ryan Nicol
After failing to get support from the Senate, the House has pulled a line item to cut 318 positions within State Attorney’s Offices.
Those cuts, which would have affected positions remaining vacant for at least 90 days, would have saved nearly $18.2 million, per an earlier House proposal. But the Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice failed to sign onto those cuts.
In the newest offer from the House Justice Budget Subcommittee, that line item is now blank.
The item has not yet been grayed out in the latest budget offer, meaning it’s still subject to change before the final budget is agreed upon.
Some items related to State Attorney’s Offices have been locked in, however. The chambers are agreeing to put $940,000 toward Planning, Accounting, and Ledger Management (PALM) readiness. The House and Senate also want nearly $573,000 for a condo/HOA criminal fraud task force. And they both have $27,500 slotted for IT critical needs.
All three of those items had the same values in the previous budget offer, but were only finalized Thursday.
There has been movement elsewhere, though numbers have not been set in stone. The Senate wants to put $2.47 million toward funding for IT personnel services. The House number previously came in lower, at $1.43 million, but the chamber now is slotting in the higher Senate number.
The Senate also wants to offset cuts through the federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) by adding $1.69 million in increased funding, as well as nearly $280,000 for enhanced trust fund authority for VOCA grants. And the Senate also plans to spend $500,000 to expand other services to support office operations.
The House previously had those lines blank, but has again moved here to the Senate’s number in its latest offer.
There are areas where the chambers are still at odds, however.
The Senate proposes to allocate funds for eight additional staff members in specialty diversion courts, at a cost of nearly $759,000. But the House is standing firm and doesn’t have any money in its budget.
The House is sticking with nearly $3.6 million to replace vehicles, an expense the Senate isn’t in agreement with. The Senate does add nearly $415,000 in a separate line item for new vehicles, however.
The Senate is also floating nearly $511,000 for public records management and almost $180,000 for body camera evidence review. The latest House offer still has $0 designated for those purposes.
Overall, the chambers are just over $2 million apart in State Attorney funding, with the House budgeting $673.69 million and the Senate at $671.55 million.
