The Chief Justice made a presentation to the House Judiciary
Committee this afternoon seeking either a supplemental appropriation of $2
million OR the ability to spread this shortfall out over two fiscal years. The letter
reprinted below was given to the committee. It explains the problem and the
limitations that the court faces in making even greater changes.
TO: Martha Heath, Chair of House Committee on Appropriations
Members of House Committee on Appropriations
FROM: Robert Greemore, CourtAdministrator
DATE: January 3, 2013
RE: FY 2013 Budget
Adjustment Request
The Judiciary finished FY 2012 unable to pay about $2 million in obligations. This coupled with an ongoing
operational deficit of about $500,000
would leave the Judiciary about $2.5 million short of paying obligations in FY 2013.
The principal reason
for the inability to meet all obligations is the fact that the Judiciary
did not realize enough employee
turnovers to meet the vacancy savings target for FY 2012 by almost $1.5
million. Also
exacerbating the problem was the increase in security costs of $420,000 (more
judge bench time contributed to this increase), increased demand for reimbursement of expenses for Guardians ad Litem by $25,000 (a
40% increase in CHINS filings contributed to this increase),
increased unemployment compensation costs by $40,000, increased cost in labor
negotiations by $25,000 and increased
costs in serving papers in relief from abuse and other domestic
issues by $12,000. The vacancy savings rate contained in the FY 2012 budget was set using historical trend levels. This
level was not attained probably due to the acceleration of employee turnovers caused by the retirement incentives offered during the restructuring efforts
in previous years.
During our restructuring efforts, we reduced
the number of employees working
in the Judiciary by over 10%. Part of the justification for the size of reduction
was the plan to have begun the implementation of case management technology during 2013. This implementation was not realized.
We are still
providing services to litigants in a paper dominated world with 40 fewer employees
than we had to accomplish the same work.
As we looked for options to mitigate the problem, we had to eliminate most of the traditional methods
to reduce spending.
•
Could not increase the number of furlough days since we had reached
the maximum days authorized by statute.
•
The time to make monetary
request of the Legislature had elapsed.
•
Layoffs would
not have generated the money needed
and the number
of layoffs that would be needed would approach
one third of all existing
positions.
Other possible
methods to control cost in the Judiciary
had been rejected
in the restructuring effort such as:
•
Closing courts.
•
Changing venue requirements.
•
Reducing the number of probate judges.
As a result of this analysis,
there was no place to reduce spending
within the timeframe of FY 2012. We began a hiring freeze
reviewing every vacancy
before approving a recruitment, but savings from this action
will mostly be realized in 2013.
The Supreme
Court is reducing
spending in FY 2013 to help mitigate the spending
issues. The Court has approved
spending reductions of about $soo,ooo in FY 2013 which will lead to about $8oo,ooo in FY 2014. The Court has under consideration other actions depending upon budget decisions
made during the upcoming Legislative session, but each will reduce staffing, curtailing further the delivery
of services to Vermonters.
The Court is requesting $2 million to be included in the FY 2013 Budget Adjustment Act or the ability to manage the budget issue over 2 to 3 fiscal years.
Ifthe latter, then the Court would
like the assistance of the Administration and the Legislature to add $1 million in FY2013 budget adjustment and another $1 million over the target in FY2014 budget.
This would allow
the Judiciary to mitigate the budget issue from FY2012 and use the spending reductions to curb ongoing
spending demands to meet budget targets
in the future.
