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September 2, 2010 |
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| June 06, 2008 |
By: Billy Shields |
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iami-Dade Circuit Court has laid off 14 people and eliminated another 14 positions to shave $1.6 million from the budget for the year starting July 1.
Employees were notified Monday and Tuesday by their division directors of cuts effective June 30. The court made the information public late Wednesday.
“This has been a difficult time for us all,” Chief Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Joseph P. Farina wrote in an e-mail to judges and court administrator Ruben Carrerou. He said he had “worked tirelessly over the last few months to prevent staff reductions.”
The court’s family division took the biggest number of layoffs, losing a court operations manager, two administrative assistants and an administrative secretary. A vacant court analyst position was dissolved.
The probate and guardianship division lost two court program specialists and deleted three vacant slots.
Five vacant law clerk positions were eliminated in the Office of General Counsel. The remaining cuts came in the traffic, criminal, juvenile, general magistrate, unified family court, court administrator and general jurisdiction divisions.
The cuts were by far the deepest for any circuits in Florida.
Broward courts previously announced 11 layoffs as part of a $1 million budget cut, and Palm Beach County’s courts cut nine employees to reduce spending by a mandated $880,000.
Judges were exempt from cuts as constitutional officers under a statewide salary and benefit reduction of $11.5 million. Senior judges, top court administrators, chief court technology officers and judicial assistants also did not face cuts.
The state attorney’s and public defender’s offices in South Florida met budget cuts by eliminating vacant positions. But Miami-Dade Public Defender Bennett Brummer has warned his office will stop taking all but the most serious felony cases due to budget constraints.
The board of the Miami chapter of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers passed a resolution supporting Brummer’s decision and provided a copy to Farina.
The state Legislature required a reduction of 35 court administrators, 47 case managers and 10 general magistrate support staffers at courts statewide. Additional cuts were made at the discretion of the chief judges.
Billy Shields can be reached at bshields@alm.com or at (305) 347-6649.
Joseph Farina photo by A.M. Holt |
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