Wisconsin Lawyer
Vol. 76, No. 4, April 2003

State's Budget Bill Impacts Court System

by Jenny Boese

Governor Doyle unveiled his first-ever budget to address Wisconsin's worst-ever deficit. While the legislation, Senate Bill 44, does not include increases to income, sales, or corporate taxes, the $3.2 billion deficit is filled through a variety of other measures, such as reductions in state agency budgets, an assumption of an increase of hundreds of millions of yet-to-be-realized federal dollars, and much more.

This column touches on a fraction of the changes that may be of interest to lawyers and includes the State Bar's legislative position.

Court Budgets

The budgets of various judicial and court-related agencies were not exempted from cuts.

The two-year totals in cuts to key budgets are as follows:

• reduction of $1 million to the supreme court budget
  
  
• reduction of $500,000 in the circuit court budget
  
  
• reduction of $1.8 million to the district attorney budget and elimination of 15 positions over two years
  
  
• reduction of $7 million to the State Public Defender, including the loss of 16 staff positions and reduction in the total amount to pay private bar attorneys.

The State Bar of Wisconsin supports adequate funding for the court system.

Filing Fees

Although filing fees were increased in 2002 to the tune of $8 million in the "budget repair" legislation, the 2003-05 budget bill raises the court support filing fee again:

• for cases other than small or large claim cases, from $52 to $67.60
  
  
• for large claim cases, from $130 to $169
  
  
• for small claim cases, from $39 to $50.70.

The budget bill also increases other filing fees, among which is raising court of appeals and supreme court appeals filing fees from $150 to $195.

In principle, the State Bar opposes filing fee increases, particularly when those fees do not go to fund court operations, because they move access to justice further away from the individuals of Wisconsin.

General Budget Provisions

The budget bill also includes provisions to:

• eliminate 2,800 state government positions
  
  
• move state consumer protection functions from the Department of Trade, Agriculture and Consumer Protection to the Department of Justice
  
  
• consolidate many agency legal positions into the Department of Administration
  
  
• create a single standard of $50,000 on the amount of assets an institutional spouse can transfer to a community spouse under Medical Assistance spousal impoverishment provisions
  
  
• preserve eligibility standards for the Medical Assistance and BadgerCare (health care for low-income persons) and SeniorCare (prescription drugs for seniors) programs
  
  
• transfer $200 million from the Patients Compensation Fund into a newly-created Health Care Provider Availability and Cost Control Fund
  
  
• reduce the amount of an irrevocable burial trust that may be excluded from assets when determining Medical Assistance eligibility from $3,000 to $1,500
  
  
• direct the Sentencing Commission, which is transferred to the Department of Corrections, to consider guidelines including alternatives to incarceration and cost-effectiveness measures in ensuring public safety
  
  
• create a State Prosecutors Board, consisting of eight district attorneys, attached to the Department of Administration to better allocate district attorney staff to meet workload demands throughout the state
  
  
• increase interpreter reimbursement funding to counties for interpreter services, regardless of indigency
  
  
• require annual reports for domestic LLCs and provide for administrative dissolution
  
  
• allow an undocumented student to pay in-state tuition at a U.W. institution if he or she graduated from a Wisconsin high school and was continuously present in Wisconsin for at least a year following the first day of attending the high school.

Senate Bill 44 is pending before the legislature's budget-writing committee, the Joint Committee on Finance. The committee scheduled six public hearings to be held across the state, beginning in Rhinelander on March 24 and ending in Madison on April 9. Afterwards, the com-mittee will vote on the budget and send it to the full Legislature for action.

Wisconsin Lawyer