Court funding restored in Senate budget

Missouri Senators voted 33-1 to use $6.7 million in federal stimulus funds to plug various holes in the state’s judiciary budget.

Earlier this year, the House passed a bill for next fiscal year’s budget that includes about $187.1 million for the state’s judiciary system. That’s about a $2.7 million cut from the current fiscal year.

The Senate chose to allocate less general revenue than the House did for the judiciary, but more than made up for it with stimulus money. The Senate’s draft of the budget bill provides about $190.2 million for the judiciary system, a slight increase from its current $189.8 million budget.

Included in the stimulus-fund infusion is a $4.04 million federal stimulus allotment for “personal service,” “expense” and “equipment” for circuit courts. The Office of the State Courts Administrator also received roughly $714,471 worth of federal stimulus money for similar purposes.

During debate on the budget bill, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, characterized the House’s proposed cuts to the judiciary as “unsustainable.”

“It is a third branch of government,” Nodler said. “And it deserves a degree of respect in that regard. But clearly, we can’t have this balance-of-power system of ours work unless each of the branches actually has the tools necessary to carry their constitutional responsibilities.”

The legislation will now go to a conference committee, where House and Senate lawmakers hash out the differences.

The lone senator to vote against the budget bill funding the judiciary system was Sen. Jim Lembke, R-St. Louis County. He said he voted against every budget bill that he thought “spent too much money.”

But Lembke also said he had a problem with using the stimulus money for what he termed as “ongoing expenses.”

“My problem, though, isn’t just with the circuit court or the judiciary,” Lembke said. “What I want to know is … are we filling a hole with stabilization money?”

Additionally, the Senate took out an amendment placed in during House debate barring the Missouri Department of Public Safety from receiving money to engage in “political profiling.”

The amendment was in response to a report from the Missouri Information Analysis Center that, among other things, linked supporters of third-party political candidates to militia groups. Yet the term “political profiling” was never defined in the amendment and is not defined in statute. Icet said the lack of a definition presented problems with enforcing the amendment.

Nodler said the amendment was unnecessary.

“The department expressed a sufficient degree of understanding of the problem to take corrective actions that we didn’t need to take any action budgetarily,” Nodler said.