Court sets out funding needs: Technology and court interpreting resources are at the top of the wish list.

Florida courts are critically short of translators, state attorneys and public defenders are bleeding talent, and an avalanche of death penalty reviews is just over the horizon.

Those are some of the warnings court officials delivered to lawmakers during a recent workshop of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Criminal and Civil Justice.

Before outlining a $58.8 million request for new spending, State Courts Administrator PK Jameson acknowledged that lawmakers are facing lean times.

"It is the most critical needs for the courts," Jameson said. "We certainly recognize the tight budget situation you are in this year. So we know that these are not all going to be funded."

State agencies and the judicial branch are submitting their wish lists in advance of a January session that will be marked by severe belt-tightening. State economists this spring forecast a mere $52 million surplus for an $87 billion-plus budget--but that was before Hurricane Irma losses were calculated.

Lawmakers have been warned to expect a $1.15 billion budget shortfall in fiscal 2019-20.

High on Jameson's wish list is an $8.5 million appropriation for "comprehensive court interpreting resources," which includes raising interpreter salaries, hiring new ones, and expanding a pilot project that makes interpreters available online.

"We are unable to hire interpreters at the pay that we have in the court system," Jameson said. "So we have a lot of vacancies that have been vacant a long time. And that includes Spanish speakers in Miami."

Jameson said another critical priority is restoring a $2 million cut lawmakers made to trial court staff this year, one that Jameson said is already being felt in the trenches.

"They had a hard freeze for the first quarter of this fiscal year, and now they're going to a 60-day hold on any vacancies," Jameson said, adding that the cuts cost South Florida a mental health coordinator. "That program, which had a handful of people, with the freeze, had none. And so the work falls to the (judicial assistants) and ... the system just slows down."

Jameson's wish list also includes a nearly $8.2 million appropriation for a new courthouse for the Second District Court of Appeal; $162,000 for the Florida Supreme Court, much of which would pay for a new position for recording court decisions; $617,470 for "continuity of operations" to keep district courts of appeal up and running during emergencies; and $350,000 to pay for a technology security...