July 25, 2024
By Bill Raftery
When it comes to court funding, there are two main interrelated questions: the governmental source of the funding (local government versus state versus federal) and the financial source of the funding (fees, fines, costs, general revenue from one of the levels of government, etc.). Over the last three years, three states have examined what state versus local funding means and the best sources of such funding.
Arkansas voters adopted Amendment 80, which rewrote the state’s judiciary article in 2000. The result was to set the stage for a reexamination of the question of state versus local funding for district courts. Over two decades later, H.B. 1245 of 2023 was adopted noting in part that “ambiguity exists concerning the funding and revenue sharing of the court system.” It directs the House and Senate Judiciary committees to examine all funding sources, the collections and distribution systems, and all other financial matters related to the court system. The committees are to provide a report by October 1, 2024 on their findings.
Florida voters approved what became known as Revision 7 in 1998, which added language to the state’s constitution to shift much of the costs of the state’s judicial system away from the localities and to the state. This was done, in part, because of perceptions that justice was uneven from county to county due to the varying financial wealth of each. Dr. Joseph Ernest Smith examined the impact that moving to state funding had on these disparities in his 2022 dissertation Florida’s Courts System Funding After Article V Revision 7. He found that 94% of funding for the courts system after Revision 7 implementation could be explained by initial funding of counties before Revision 7 and, thus, county-by-county disparities continue to exist.
Over the last decade, Michigan has made several inquiries into the question of the funding level (state versus local) and source (fees, fines, costs) for its trial court system. This included the creation of a Trial Court Funding Commission by the legislature in 2017 (H.B. 4613 of 2017) and its final report in 2019 that attempted to detail how courts were funded. The latest effort, H.B. 5534, the Trial Court Funding Act of 2024, requires the State Court Administrative Office to analyze certain trial court costs and revenue sources and develop legislative proposals to change trial court funding by May 1, 2026.
H.B. 5534 had been approved by the full House and the Senate approved its version, which was rejected 53-52 by the House on April 24, 2024. The bill was reconsidered and passed the House on May 9 with State Court Administrator Thomas Boyd telling local media courts rely too much on fines and fees to fund their budgets.
What level of government funds your state trial courts, and what are their revenue sources? Share with us. For more information, contact knowledge@ncsc.org or call 800-616-6164. Follow the National Center for State Courts on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Vimeo. For more Trending Topics posts, visit ncsc.org/trendingtopics or subscribe to the LinkedIn newsletter.