Clerks to reduce staff, public hours.

The public and lawyers will face reduced hours for filing, copying, and accessing trial court paperwork under a plan developed by Florida clerks of court to deal with a 7 percent budget cut scheduled to go into effect July 1.

As that deadline approached, clerks were still hoping they might win a reprieve from the Legislative Budget Commission, which can reverse the cut in clerks' court-related funding that was inserted by lawmakers late in this year's budget process. But even if that happens, clerks will continue to face other economic pressures raising their costs.

Sarasota Clerk of Court Karen Rushing, president of the Florida Association of Court Clerks, said most clerks have agreed to cut their public operating hours by two hours a day, to 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Currently, most clerks are open for court-related work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Some clerks will also be closing branch offices.

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Clerk employees will not be working fewer hours, Rushing said. Instead they will be devoting the two hours a day they are not assisting the public and lawyers to addressing the backlog that is expected to develop--especially in civil cases--in handling court paperwork.

The reduction in hours was developed during discussions with Supreme Court Justice Charles Canady, Chief Justice-elect Ricky Polston, and the circuit chief judges about how the clerks will deal with the budget cut.

"We discussed the situation using the model that shows there would be delays, fairly quick delays [in court cases] coming out of the box if we didn't do something significant," Rushing said.

She said clerks will still be available to support courtroom operations when there are hearings or trials that begin at 8 a.m. or run beyond 4 p.m.

Clerks have said the $30 million reduction could cost them 900 jobs statewide, or about 11 percent of their court support staff. They also said it will leave them around 10 percent short of the 16.64 million hours of labor they need to handle their court-related operations.

Because of speedy trial considerations, statutory deadlines in domestic violence and other cases, the bulk of that cutback is expected to fall on civil cases, including litigation, family law, evictions, small claims, foreclosures, and probate matters.

Clerks remain hopeful the Legislative Budget Commission, empowered to handle budget matters between legislative sessions, will reverse the budget cut, Rushing said.

"At this point, we believe the matter will be...