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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Park

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/25/06

HB 334

SHORT TITLE 2

nd

Judicial District Civil Attorney

SB

ANALYST McSherry

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY06

FY07

$125.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 334 appropriates $125,000 from the general fund to the Second Judicial District

Court for the purpose of providing salary and benefits for a civil attorney.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $125,000 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the general fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of fiscal year 2007 shall revert

to the general fund.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

According to the LFC interpretation of the judicial staff study, the 2

nd

Judicial District is cur-

rently over 100 percent fully staffed. The LFC interpretation considers all approved employees.

(see attachment).

According to the judiciary’s interpretation of the judicial staff study, the District is not fully

staffed. The judiciary omits term positions in their “number of staff” figure. However, the “total

work” measured in the court, which was used to determine need for staff, included both the work

performed by the term staff and permanent staff in the same manner.

House Bill 334 – Page

2

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

A civil attorney could improve research and performance in the Court’s civil division. The

“cases disposed of cases filed” figure could potentially improve with further attorney support.

The 2

nd

District has not proposed performance measures or targets that would be appropriate to

measure the improvements a civil staff attorney could provide.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

Additional personnel place additional workload on existing administration.

The proposed position could reduce workload for the civil judges in the 2

nd

Judicial District.

CONFLICT, DUPLICATION, COMPANIONSHIP, RELATIONSHIP

This position was requested in the 2

nd

District’s budget request. It was the agency’s 10

th

new

FTE priority after 2 systems analysts and 7 judicial specialists.

WHAT WILL BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT ENACTING THIS BILL

The 2

nd

District would not gain a civil attorney through an appropriations bill.

POSSIBLE QUESTIONS

1.

What improvements will result if the proposed position is created.

2.

What will the role of the civil attorney be.

3.

How many other districts have a civil attorney.

4.

What size should a court be before requesting a civil attorney to assist judges.

EM/nt