Judicial Department faces possible $1 million deficit > Payment of bills for June postponed

AUGUSTA — The state Judicial Department faces a potential deficit of up to $1 million by the end of the current fiscal year because officials dipped into this year’s budget to pay last year’s bills.

Judicial managers said Friday the department postponed $400,000 in June payments to court-appointed lawyers and $600,000 in other bills, including payments to jurors and vendors.

Payments were delayed because the department ran out of money during the fiscal year that ended June 30, said Robert Freeman, budget officer for the judicial branch.

On July 1, the state began paying those bills out of the $33 million fiscal 1991 judicial budget. But while it solved one problem, it created another one, Freeman said.

“We have one million dollars less than we need,” Freeman said, adding that a round of austerity measures should cover $600,000 to $700,000 of the deficit.

That would leave a shortfall of $300,000 to $400,000 unless more cuts are made or additional money is appropriated before the end of the fiscal year June 30, 1991.

Court officials said the judiciary routinely carries bills from one fiscal year to the next, but they seldom exceed $400,000. This year’s $1 million delay reflected a 15 percent jump in the number of defendants requiring court-appointed lawyers and other unavoidable increases in judicial spending, said state court administrator Dana R. Baggett.

Baggett said Superior Court civil filings were up 6.7 percent from April through June of this year compared to a year ago, and criminal filings increased more than 18 percent during the same three-month period, which is the last quarter of the state’s fiscal year.