Bush budget provides for lots of judges: would provide $1 million for Civil Legal Assistance Act.

All 66 new judges certified by the Supreme Court this year are in Gov. Jeb Bush's proposed 2006-07 budget, as are some staff increases for state attorneys and public defenders to accompany those new judges who are assigned to criminal courts.

Bush also proposed restoring $1 million to the Civil Legal Assistance Act. Last year, Bush vetoed a $5 million appropriation for that program, saying that amount was too fast a growth from the previous year's $500,000 budget.

But the governor offered no new money for other programs in the trial courts, and state attorneys and public defenders did not get the funds they wanted for raises for their mid-level staff. The state's Capital Collateral Regional Counsel offices also saw no budget increase in the spending plan, and Bush proposes a slight cut in the Guardian Ad Litem Program's budget.

Those figures, of course, are not final. The legislature will write the final budget and send it to the governor by early May, at the end of the 60-day Regular Session. The governor may, however, exercise line-item vetos, as he did last year in excising the Civil Legal Assistance appropriation.

"The governor did pick up all the judges that the Supreme Court certified," said State Courts Administrator Lisa Goodner. "That's two district court of appeal judges, 40 circuit judges, and 24 county judges."

Half of those would be filled as of September 1 and the remainder by December 1, she added.

The proposed budget "also addressed several of the building maintenance and security issues for the Supreme Court and for the five DCAs," Goodner added. "He did pick up three court education positions for the Office of the State Courts Administrator for the purpose of expanding our current court education system."

The budget also calls for three more information technology positions to support the judicial inquiry system, which provides information to judges about the defendants appearing before them. Improving that system, Goodner noted, was part of the Jessica Lunsford Act passed by the legislature last year that aims to crack down on child sexual abusers.

At the trial court level, other than the new judges and their direct support staff, Bush included little of what was recommended by the courts, including no increase in clerks for circuit court judges. The budget, Goodner said, did include $500,000 for maintenance and lease agreements for equipment that was transferred to the state from counties as part of the Revision 7...