by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
When Gov. Jeb Bush approved the $64.7 billion state budget two weeks ago, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid felt a sadly familiar pinch.
To lessen this year’s budget, Bush used line item vetoes to trim about $180 million in local projects around the state. Legal Aid was part of one of those projects.
One of Bush’s largest vetoes effectively killed the Florida Access to Civil Legal Assistance Act (FACLAA), a three-year-old program that allocated money for several legal aid programs in Florida, including about $130,000 annually to JALA.
This year, the funding program had been approved by the Florida House and Senate for expansion to include statewide aid. For the past three years the program has only funded about six pilot programs in certain districts, Jacksonville being in one of the supported districts.
Unfortunately for JALA, this was the second substantial funding blow in the past two months. In April, the City announced that it might cut its funding to JALA by more than $100,000 due to an accounting miscalculation. When added to the recent State funding cut, JALA now has much less than expected.
While familiar with campaigning for funds, JALA Executive Director Michael Figgins said the recent cuts were most unexpected and have put a cloud on the organization’s operational future.
“This is like a perfect storm of funding cuts,” Figgins said.
Though JALA has an annual budget of about $3.8 million, Figgins said the recent cuts will put a sizable dent in the amount of services JALA can offer to the community.
“With the worst case scenario, it comes down to services,” he said. “We will have to do less than what we have done in the past.”
Though Figgins said JALA will most likely not experience any staff downsizing, many other legal aid organizations around the state funded through FACLAA won’t be so lucky.
Tony Karrat, executive director of Legal Aid Services of Broward County, said his organization lost about $225,000 of its $3.6 million budget due to the FACLAA kill.
“This will affect us pretty seriously,” Karrat said. “That is a whole lot of money for us to absorb. When something like this happens, it means that we have to let people go.”
Karrat said if he doesn’t quickly find a way to fill the gap left behind by the State, he will have to begin cutting down his 27-person staff after July 1. With a smaller staff, he said the organization’s services will also be reduced.
At the moment, Legal Aid Services of Broward County is working on plans to fill the gap but Karrat said he is “not optimistic.”
Another legal aid organization partially funded by FACLAA, Bay Area Legal Services, will also have to cut back some services and employees in its Hillsborough County office, said executive director Richard Woltmann.
He said the $150,000 his office received each year from FACLAA represents about two full-time attorneys who can each serve nearly 350 clients per year in the Tampa area. He said the FACLAA money in the Hillsborough County office mainly went towards family law and domestic abuse cases.
“Now, a few hundred victims of domestic abuse will not be able to receive representation,” Woltmann said.
Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida Inc. also used its FACLAA funds to defend domestic abuse cases in its Osceola office. Penny Young, public relations and resource development manager for Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida, said 63 percent of the cases funded with FACLAA monies were family law cases, a third of that number being related to domestic abuse.
Young said by giving direct legal assistance to people in need, the FACLAA funds also have a ripple effect on the legal system as a whole. For example, she said the funds take a burden off the State and the courts by expediting child support cases and keeping people from seeking money through the welfare system.
Young is among many in the legal aid community that were shocked by the program-ending budget veto. She said she was quite surprised at Gov. Bush’s veto since both the House and Senate were fully behind the program and the program’s expansion.
“We all felt that this was very important,” Young said. “There was a consensus that this would go through. When I got the e-mail that said it was vetoed I was shocked.”
State Sen. Burt Saunders, R-Naples, was also shocked by the governor’s decision to halt the program. Saunders was among many state legislators responsible for drafting legislation several years ago that led to the formation of FACLAA.
“I am very disappointed that the funding has been vetoed,” Saunders said. “When I did the bill in 2002, I felt that there was really a need for legal assistance funding to aid the poor. Hopefully next year we will do a better job of convincing the governor that this is an important program. It is just a matter of trying again next year.”
Figgins, however, isn’t going to wait until next year. Now that JALA has definitely lost its state funding and probably its city funding, Figgins said that he will just have to garner more support from the legal community in Jacksonville for the time being.
“We will just have to do what we have done in past years,” he said. “JALA is somewhat insulated and we can sustain a blow like this, but we will be on the canvas just like everyone else. We have been in this shape before and the community rallies around and I feel that they will do that again.”