Brief (1)
HB 2450 would allow the Judicial Branch to present its budget to the Legislature directly without being subject to review and budget cuts by the Division of the Budget.
The House Committee amendments were technical.
The re-referral of the bill caused the need for additional technical amendments.
Background
The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a representative of the Office of Judicial Administration (OJA) spoke in favor of the bill. The OJA representative said the Judicial Branch budget is the subject of strict scrutiny before its submission to the Director of the Budget. Every request made by a judicial district must be justified and approved by the administrative judge for that district. These requests are then reviewed by both the Office of Judicial Administration and by the Supreme Court, who look at the requests in light of the caseload analysis and other factors for that district. This process has been described in testimony on the Judicial Branch budget as a "painful winnowing." That is apparent from the FY 1999 budget, in which requests for 121 new FTE positions were winnowed down to the 50 positions included in the Judicial Branch budget request, and in this year's FY 2000 budget request, in which requests for 150 new FTE positions were winnowed down to 38. A similar process occurs each year, and yet these requests, which can fairly be characterized as conservative in light of the staggering caseload increases the courts experience, are cut even further by the Executive Branch.
Under the present arrangement, the Judicial Branch budget comes to the Legislature in two forms--the budget as prepared by the Judicial Branch, and the budget as modified by the Executive Branch. It is appropriate for Executive Branch agencies to be reviewed by the Director of the Budget in the process of determining what budget requests the Executive Branch desires to make for its own operations. It is inappropriate to treat the Judicial Branch budget the same as an agency of the Executive Branch.
The 1986 report of the Judicial Council Court Unification Advisory Committee agreed in principle with the position of the Supreme Court that the Judicial Branch budget should be submitted to the Legislature without change. However, the committee's recommendation went somewhat further, suggesting that the Court's budget be submitted directly to the Legislature. That committee noted the following:
It is the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court that Article 3, Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution confers on the Supreme Court the responsibility for general administrative authority over all the courts of the state. By reason of this constitutional provision, and inherent authority of the Court, it is the responsibility of the Supreme Court to determine the financial needs of the Judicial Branch and make those needs known to the Legislature.
That committee recommended legislation that would have the Chief Justice submit the Judicial Branch budget directly to the Legislature, with a copy given to the Governor. As with HB 2450, the language requiring the Director of the Budget to make recommendations for proposed changes in the budget is deleted.
Prior to court unification, the Supreme Court did submit its budget directly to the Legislature.
The fiscal note states that the bill would not necessarily increase costs.
The bill was moved out of the House Judiciary Committee during the 1999 Session and was then re-referred.
During the 1999 interim, the Special Committee on Judiciary studied the Kansas Citizens Justice Initiative proposals and recommended the passage of HB 2450.
1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/bill_search.html