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July 29, 2010 |
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| February 10, 2010 |
By: Review staff |
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he Palm Beach County Clerk & Comptroller imposed a hiring freeze after state officials notified the state’s clerks that they owe millions of dollars in administrative fees for a trust fund created last year.
Palm Beach’s share of the fee totals $1.6 million, and payment would mean the loss of 140 positions on top of 101 employees lost last June, Clerk & Comptroller Sharon Bock said Tuesday.
“This unreasonable charge threatens the basic functioning of our court system in Palm Beach County,” she said. “It won’t even matter how many judges there are to hear cases because the documents they depend on will be backlogged in my office. Justice in Palm Beach County will come to a grinding halt.”
A call to the Miami-Dade County clerk’s office said calls are taken only from 9 a.m. to noon daily due to budget cuts.
The Feb. 4 letter from the state Division of Accounting and Auditing notes the clerks do not have an exemption to avoid the fee and payments are due quarterly. The state is giving clerks until Feb. 22 to submit a payment plan or the state Department of Financial Services will transfer the money directly from the trust fund.
The letter said $17.3 million is overdue statewide, but Bock said the state is seeking immediate payment of $42 million.
The letter was sent to Broward County Clerk of Courts Howard Forman as chairman of the executive council of the Florida Clerk of Courts Operations Corp.
Contacted Tuesday, he said the fee demand “was a great big surprise. We just let go 1,300 employees statewide, and if this stays in effect we’ll have to lay off another 1,300 and close some courthouses.” After 150 layoffs last year, he said: “We’re holding our own. If it wasn’t for the technology, the lines in the courthouse would be down to Dania.”
Forman has been on the hot seat over his office’s service to judges, attorneys and the public including lost documents and generally slow service. He and Broward Chief Circuit Judge Victor Tobin have been in a standoff for months.
The dispute was fed by a legislative takeover of clerks’ budgets last spring after years of relative financial independence and the creation of a court trust fund rerouting some funds from clerks to judges.
Bock said the trust fund has a $138 million surplus, but none is available to fund clerk employees or operations.
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