Revision 7 transition: so far so good.

On July 1, the lights came on, the doors were unlocked, and Florida's trial courts opened for business, albeit with a new scheme that has the state taking over most of the expenses from the counties.

And in the first weeks since then, by and large the courts have continued operating efficiently, bills have been paid, money is flowing into and through state coffers to where it is supposed to go, and the system has suffered no major hiccups. There, however, have been some glitches with the implementation of Revision 7, the constitutional amendment that voters approved in 1998 and which mandated the funding switch.

"The good news is it has been better than 1 expected," said state Sen. Rod Smith, D-Gainesville, who chaired the Senate committee that oversaw Revision 7 implementation. "The bad news is it hasn't been as good as I hoped."

According to Fourth Circuit Judge Fred Tygart, chair of the Conference of Circuit Court Judges, "The judges are generally pleased with the legislature's funding for Article V.... There are no courthouses closed, they're all operating at 100 percent and in some areas at 110 percent." He added, though, that many of the new positions in court management and support have yet to be filled.

An informal survey of court-related officials shows that the legislatively created system for implementing Revision 7 is working and there have been no major delays or shutdowns. But there are also some problems, primarily related to criminal defense issues and paying for some necessary tests and services. There also has been a dispute between a rules committee and court clerks over supervision of clerks in their court-related functions.

"The big picture is that the sky hasn't fallen. We're still doing business, the courts are still open," said Second Circuit Public Defender Nancy Daniels, immediate past president of the Florida Public Defender Association. "Conflict lawyers are still being assigned in criminal cases, experts are being hired and paid for. But there are a lot of vexing implementation issues."

Those include, she said, confusion about paying for necessary mental health experts, uncertainty about paying for court reporters in some circuits, inadequate funding of due process costs, and inadequate compensation for conflict attorneys.

The latter is perhaps the most visible difficulty, and Sen. Smith acknowledged he expected that to be a problem. "I favored raising the reimbursement. It was the House that would not go along...