ALBANY - Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye has sent the state Legislature and Governor David A. Paterson a budget request that court administrators say both takes into account New York's "grave" financial straits and the courts' attempts to meet the added burdens the economic crisis will place on dockets.
Taxpayer support for the courts would remain flat at $2.27 billion under the proposal for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Overall, when federal aid is included, the judiciary expects to spend approximately $2.5 billion, an increase of $2.3 million, or 0.1 percent.
See a summary of the courts' proposed budget.
Administrators also reported that they had saved around $40 million in this year's budget through a series of belt-tightening moves.
The budget proposal for the upcoming year again contains a proposed allocation for a judicial pay raise, the fourth straight year the judiciary has put a salary increase request before lawmakers and the governor.
The previous three requests have failed. Mr. Paterson is projecting a $12.5 billion budget gap for 2009-10, and the judicial pay raise is seen as having little realistic chance of success at a time when the governor is looking for cuts to education and health care aid, and contract concessions from public employee unions.
Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau (See Profile) said the judiciary continues to be "mindful of the need to focus on the judicial salary increase," despite the bleak financial picture that Mr. Paterson, in particular, has been painting since he assumed office in March following the abrupt resignation of Eliot Spitzer.
"It's been 10 years since the judges had a salary increase," Judge Pfau said Friday in an interview. "I cannot think of another profession where there has not been a cost-of-living increase in a decade. We will continue to pursue that, including putting that in our budget, on behalf of our judges."
Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, the chairwoman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, said Friday the economic downturn and the state's dismal balance sheet does not change the merits of the judiciary's case for its first pay increase since 1999 nor the need for more Family Court judges, a request usually made outside the budget process.
"The need is not the hard sell," said Ms. Weinstein, D-Brooklyn. "The hard sell is coming up with new dollars at a time when other programs are being cut."
The budget asks for $48 million to fund a judicial pay raise retroactive to Jan. 1, 2009, according to a formula favored by Chief Judge Kaye to put Supreme Court justices, who make $136,700 a year, into pay parity with the $162,100 made by federal District Court judges. The other 1,300 state-paid judges would get increases in roughly equal percentages.
The judiciary budget seeks authorization to give judges raises retroactive to April 1, 2005, though funding previously allocated for such raises, which were never authorized, has lapsed.
Court administrators said they will continue to push for creation of a commission to periodically evaluate and authorize judicial salary increases free of the political gamesmanship involving the governor and Legislature that has killed prior judicial raises.
The budget asks for no new judges and anticipates no increase in the total number of nonjudicial court employees in the next fiscal year. It also provides for no layoffs.
The judiciary's budget requests must be included without change when Mr. Paterson makes his budget request to the Legislature, but lawmakers are free to alter it. Mr. Paterson, citing the fiscal crisis, said he will propose his next budget on Dec. 16, or five weeks earlier than governors normally submit their spending plans to lawmakers.
The overall size of Mr. Paterson's budget proposal is not yet known. The size of the current year's budget, estimated at $121.7 billion when passed in April 2008, is now projected at $120.8 billion.
The governor may critique the judiciary's 2009-10 budget request in his own executive budget materials and alter it once it is before legislators, though governors have generally not interfered with the budget requests to fund the operations of the other two branches.
There was no comment Friday from Mr. Paterson's office on the judiciary budget request.
An executive summary of the budget submission, echoing warnings made by Chief Judge Kaye during her Nov. 12 State of the Judiciary address (NYLJ, Nov. 13), predicted that the dismal economy will drive more business the courts' way, be it through consumer debt filings in Civil Court, evictions and tenant-landlord disputes in Housing Court or family-related matters in Family Court.
The court system has sent out letters to more than 25,000 people holding high-cost or subprime mortgages informing them that they are entitled to court hearings prior to foreclosure proceedings under a state law that went into effect on Sept. 1, 2008. Judge Pfau said court administrators will gauge the burden on the courts of holding those hearings, which have not yet begun.
"The judiciary is closely monitoring caseload trends in these and other areas, and is preparing to handle increased filings by shifting existing resources and implementing targeted programs, such as our mortgage foreclosure program, to more effectively manage and resolve particular case types," the judiciary's budget submission said.
Cost-Savings Measures
In August, Judge Pfau announced a series of cost-saving measures, some of which she said had been in effect for several months, to cut costs within the judiciary amid the increasingly grim fiscal and economic news (NYLJ, Aug. 6).
To date, she estimated Friday, the court system has saved $40 million in its current budget through:
• A "vacancy control program" requiring most new hires by the courts to be approved beforehand by the OCA;
• Restricting purchases of office equipment and other expenditures;
• A ban on unnecessary travel.
Other aspects of the judiciary's 2009-10 budget request included:
• $6.6 million for child legal representation costs, including full-year funding of more law guardians needed to comply with the guardian caseload caps established in 2007;
• $6.3 million for personnel overtime costs, primarily for public security staffers.
The proposed budget was approved by Chief Judge Kaye and the other six members of the Court of Appeals before being forwarded to the governor and Legislature.
Joel.Stashenko@incisivemedia.com
