Attention turns to Art. V funding: Bush offers tight courts' budget.

Florida legislators have been warning about a tough budget year. On January 21, as this News went to press, Gov. Jeb Bush put some hard numbers to paper, recommending cuts in some court-related functions.

The Bush proposed budget would wipe out the three regional offices that represent death row inmates on their collateral appeals and cut staffing for the district courts of appeal judges. The guardian ad litem program would be removed from the courts and reside in the Justice Administrative Commission, which oversees disbursements for state attorneys and public defenders. The court system would lose almost 400 positions, but 344 of those would be attributed to the guardian ad litem transfer.

There also apparently are no new judgeships in the proposed budget. There's also no money to continue the Civil Legal Assistance Act, but a Bush spokesperson said that program will be addressed in later legislation. The act is a grant program for legal aid agencies to help poor families with legal problems.

Public defenders would stay about the same, while state attorneys would see a slight budget and staff cut.

Complete details were not immediately available, but the governor's 2003-04 fiscal plan provided some sobering numbers.

For example, Bush proposed cutting the $292.8 million in this year's budget for court operations to $265.1 million for next year. Most of that, about $18 million, could come from the guardian ad litem transfer.

The reductions include 13 positions of the 214 at the Supreme Court and reducing employees at the district courts of appeal from 434 to 400.

Aside from the guardian ad litem transfer, circuit court personnel would remain constant with 1,383 positions. There were no cuts proposed for county judges or their staffs.

At the Supreme Court, the governor's budget would transfer 10 persons with the guardian ad litem shift, according to Lisa Goodner, deputy state courts administrator. The problem with that proposal, she said, is the state courts don't have 10 positions that support GAL operations. The other three reductions were in the court's personnel office.

Goodner said the governor's office wants the court system to join the privatized personnel operations being implemented for the executive branch agencies. She said the court system is reluctant to do that because of the impending expansion of state funding for the trial courts and the likelihood that will add hundreds of county-paid personnel to the court payrolls.

At the...