Budget conference: House agrees to add more Judges, boost funding for correctional programs

Justice statue, prison cell hallway, scales, blindfolded, legal

The House is adjusting proposals for several key sticking points in the civil and criminal justice silo, offering to fund more judgeships and increase available funds for correctional programs and services.

The latest numbers come as part of the conference between the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee and the House Justice Budget Subcommittee.

New budget documents released late Thursday compare the newest House bump offer with its previous bump offer released Monday.

The House is now pushing for the certification of 97 new judgeships, up from 91, across the state court system. That would cost just over $18.82 million, up from the previous estimate of $17.57 million.

The House is also nearly doubling its allocation for correctional programs and services under the Department of Corrections, moving from $1.25 million to $2.375 million.

But the lower chamber is making cuts elsewhere. A $400,000 line item for law enforcement programs and services under the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) has now been zeroed out. Another FDLE line item, grants and aid to local governments and nonstate entities, has been cut from just under $7.12 million to just over $6.74 million.

And a fifth and final line item offering funding for county courthouse facilities has also been reduced from $1.05 million to $700,000.

Those remain the final five line items listed in the civil and criminal justice silo, excluding projects and proviso language.

Overall, the House is upping its proposed spending on these five items from $27.39 million to $28.64 million.

The Senate has not publicly released a new offer since Monday’s update. But their spending for those five items at that time was just shy of a whopping $95.2 million, thanks in large part to more than $67.6 million for the grants and aid line item, where the House is only offering about a tenth of that.

The Senate has since modified some of its positions during closed-door negotiations.

Lawmakers have extended the Session through Wednesday, but have set a target date of Monday to finalize the budget. But work must be done 72 hours in advance due to Florida’s cooling off period. With no more budget meetings scheduled for Thursday evening, that means negotiators would need to wrap all issues Friday in order to hit their target date.