by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
For Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and the State Attorney’s Office, Duval County’s recording fees giveth where filing fees taketh away.
The mayor’s office and City Council helped dig JALA and the SAO’s Drug Court program out of a financial hole Tuesday night when the Council passed a $700,000 funding package. JALA and Drug Court took a potentially crippling financial hit when filing fees attached to criminal convictions failed to generate revenue as expected. After months of searching, the City was able to fill most of that gap with recording fees kept by the Duval County Clerk of Courts that performed better than expected.
The City shifted $720,000 of those excess recording fees to cover part of the shortfalls at JALA and the SAO. JALA received $400,000 while the SAO got $320,000. Council President Kevin Hyde described those amounts last week as covering “the bare minimum,” to keep programs like Drug Court and JALA’s predatory lending program going.
Both JALA Executive Director Mike Figgins and State Attorney Harry Shorstein agreed that their programs were still underfunded. But both said the funding bump had allowed them to avoid worst-case scenarios.
“Are we home free now? No. But then we never are,” said Shorstein. “Given the tough financial decisions the mayor has been forced to make, I’m pleased he looked at Drug Court as a priority.”
Figgins seconded that sentiment. He said Mayor John Peyton and Hyde had been committed to finding funding for JALA since it was hit by state and City funding cuts earlier this year.
“You could say that we’ve gone from sinking to treading water. That might not sound great, but I’m glad to be breathing again,” said Figgins. “I take this as a message that Kevin Hyde and the mayor’s office value JALA, and they value a strong JALA.”
With a tough budget year behind it and another one ahead, the mayor’s office has received plenty of requests for supplemental funding. But Drug Court and JALA’s programs are viewed as good investments.
Drug Court gives drug offenders an opportunity to avoid incarceration by entering a year-long treatment program. That helps prevent prison overcrowding, keeps the offenders off the City’s dime and provides incentives for rehabilitation.
JALA’s programs focus on providing access to the courts to people who couldn’t otherwise afford it. By fighting foreclosures and predatory lending and offering family law services, JALA helps preserve quality-of-life standards in Jacksonville’s poor neighborhoods, said Figgins.
“I think the mayor recognized that a lot of the work we do fits in with what he’s trying to accomplish as far as raising per capita income and children’s issues,” he said.
The extra funding to keep those programs going came from a surplus in recording fees. The City charges $10 per page to record marriage licenses, tax deeds and home sales. Clerk of Courts Jim Fuller attributed last year’s surplus to Duval County’s surging real estate market.
“With interest rates down, you have more people buying houses, more pages recorded. At $10 a page, it adds up pretty quickly,” said Fuller.
Neither Shorstein nor Figgins knows whether the money will be available again next year. Fuller said it’s hard to predict how the fees will perform in the future. He thinks recording fees could dip next year as rising interest rates slow Duval County’s real estate market. But that could be offset by better performance from the criminal filing fees.
Those ups and downs are second nature to administrators like Shorstein who rely on public funding. He said he’ll be ready to fight for his funding next year, no matter what the state’s finances look like.
“In this business, you take what you can get, and when that runs out, you go out and make your pitch again,” he said.