Our Legislature wants us to believe “We balance the budget.” So they do a kind of carnival slight of hand where they deliberately underfund accounts, and pretend in the press and to voters to have fully funded those accounts. One of those underfunded accounts is to private attorneys, almost all of whom are solo practitioners running on almost no margin who, out of commitment to access to justice represent the indigent. I am one of those attorneys making up the thin red, white, and blue line that creates access to justice for the destitute, such as children in foster care and their parents. Fully 40% [last statistic I received] of the cases and costs for court appointed attorneys do not go for representing alleged criminals, but rather to Children Requiring Assistance [CRA] cases, children in foster homes, and the mentally ill [just for example]. Payments to such attorneys are made from one line item in the state budget – 0321-1510. That line item ran out of funds June 9th. No funds were put in that line item for fiscal year 2018 – so the temporary budget used to fake avoidance of a shut down? Payment is shut down to the indigent defense private bar. None of us have received any payment since June 9th.
And so the FY 2017 budget was never balanced. No really – never. It was a shell game. And others who do work as 1099 contractors to the state like I do are treated with the same fakery and disrespect – but none as badly as the attorneys standing between the state and suffering children, families, teenagers, and the mentally ill are treated.
Here is what the State House News Service, as published in the Sentinel, disclosed:
In the absence of a state budget, Newton Mayor Setti Warren, who is running for governor as a Democrat, warned of a coming “new age of austerity” in Massachusetts if those on Beacon Hill didn’t stop the “secrecy and fiscal games and gimmicks.”
… Warren did not mention specific “gimmicks” that he took issue with, but Gov. Charlie Baker has in the past taken issue with the Legislature’s preference for underfunding some accounts, such as indigent defense counsel services, in the annual spending bill and then using mid-year supplemental appropriation bills to supply additional money as the need arises.
While it’s unknown how the Legislature will fund the Committee for Public Counsel Services in the fiscal 2018 budget, officials at CPCS confirmed to the News Service Wednesday that the agency has run out of money for fiscal 2017 cases and will not be able to pay attorneys until a final deficiency budget is passed later this year.
One official said the price tag will be roughly $25 million to pay lawyers who have performed services for indigent clients.
Read more: http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/breakingnews/ci_31117982/budget-pot-bills-appear-linked-larger-bargaining#ixzz4m33JwGGK
(ed note: Edited to stay within fair use. Subscribe to newspapers. — CB)
Thanks Charlie – credit given where credit is due is always a good thing.
And…it would be “only fair” to be paid for work I have already done, true for all of us who do this work who are not getting paid for work already done but still doing the work needed.
#paythebar is the hash tag to use for support tweets
Hot off the internet – at 4:16 this email was received from CPCS [summary – we are trying hard and did get a dribble in the interim Budget for July 2017 but not enough to pay everyone – first submitted, first paid till we run out again – see:
FY 2017 Funding Update
Inbox
x
Lisa M. Hewitt, General Counsel via auth.ccsend.com
3:44 PM (1 hour ago)
to me
COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC COUNSEL SERVICES
44 Bromfield Street
Boston, MA 02108
(617) 482-6212
July 6, 2017
Dear Colleagues,
I am truly sorry to report that there is nothing new as to when a supplemental appropriations bill containing the $25.5M needed by CPCS will be enacted so that we can meet our outstanding FY 2017 obligation to you. This information is similar to the June 27th post made on all our listservs (reprinted below). I understand that nothing we report can make this situation any easier, except a message that says the Governor has signed a supplemental appropriations bill and you will be paid. Unfortunately, I am unable to convey such a message or one that contains a concrete timetable for the enactment of such a bill. Please know that we are dedicating a tremendous amount of time and effort to secure this funding as we have been all year and as we have in the past. I am receiving many phone calls and emails, and follow the listserv discussions. At this juncture, I was hoping to report more encouraging news, but cannot. A positive news report that I am able to share is that last night Speaker De Leo asked the Marijuana Law Implementation Conference Committee to cease meeting until the FY 2018 Budget Conference Committee has completed its work. His request is said to have been made so that the full attention of both legislative bodies could be focused on the budget. This is positive because traditionally once a general appropriations bill is enacted the Legislature then takes up a final deficiency (the bill with funding to CPCS) for the preceding year.
As this situation has been caused by a complicated set of state revenue circumstances I am going to try to outline what is going on as simply as possible:
1) Is a supplemental appropriation bill pending? The Governor filed a supplemental appropriation bill in February of this year. In March, the House Ways and Means Committee reported that bill out, “in part”, and it was enacted. This Act provided an additional $26,938,875.00 to the Committee for Public Counsel Services to pay bills. As mentioned in the June 27th listserv posting, CPCS immediately notified our funders that the amount provided was appreciated, but still not sufficient to pay all our projected obligations for FY 2017. Moving forward, House Ways and Means can report out an additional bill, “in part”, from the Governor’s original supplemental request or it can wait for the Governor to file a final deficiency budget. Whichever vehicle is utilized, our funders have been informed routinely of our present need by direct contact from CPCS staff.
2) Why hasn’t the Legislature enacted the final deficiency yet? As mentioned in the June 27th email, “Despite our efforts, the Commonwealth’s complicated fiscal landscape has slowed down the timetable for the Legislature to consider these final FY 2017 needs. The budget process has been further complicated because overall state revenues collected through May have not met expectations and the Commonwealth is projected to be presently experiencing a $500M shortfall.” Furthermore, the State House News Service reports, “The Legislature and Baker Administration are waiting for finalized June tax collection totals to come in later this month. These revenues will determine how big of a budget gap Baker will need to close for the fiscal year that ended Friday after tax collections through May were running $439 million behind projections.” The Governor’s Administration and Finance Department and the Legislature are trying to assess all Commonwealth accounts for reversions from other agencies funding and other deficiencies in order to determine how much the final deficiency must be.
3) What was that appropriation bill that was on the news concerning FY 2018? On June 26, 2017, the Legislature passed and the Governor signed an interim FY 2018 budget authorizing sufficient funding for the Commonwealth to maintain necessary services through July 31, 2017. CPCS has received approximately $8.24M. The funds which are available will be expended for bills with FY18 dates of services that are received and in good order on a first-received, first-paid basis. We will process as many of the calendar dates of service for July 2017 bills we receive until the appropriation runs out.
CPCS continues to vigorously pursue confirmation of when a supplemental appropriation bill that includes the funds needed to meet our obligation to those of you who receive payment from the 0312-1510 and 0321-1520 line item accounts will be enacted. In the past, a final supplemental appropriation bill followed the enactment of the fiscal year budget. It is our belief that once the FY 2018 General Appropriations Act is signed by the Governor a supplemental appropriations bill will follow. As always we will continue to urge action on your behalf and will inform you of any movement on passage of the bill.
Below please find the message that was posted on June 27th on all our listservs concerning the deficiency needs for the outstanding FY 2017 bills:
Dear Colleagues,
We are reaching out to you to provide an update on the FY 2017 funding situation. I have received many phone calls and emails and I am sorry I cannot get back to you individually. I know there is nothing we can report which will make this situation any easier for you as you face this financial dilemma. There is also no precise date that I can communicate wherein the funding is to be appropriated as the process is tied up with the FY 2018 funding process. There is although a lot of incorrect information on the list serves which I am hoping to correct. Please understand that we have been striving to secure additional funding for the remaining bills since the enactment of the inadequate Fiscal Year 2017 Appropriation last July. In every communication, meeting, or conference call, numbering in the hundreds, we have included a request for the remaining funds needed. It has been suggested by some list serve contributors that the CPCS administrative staff didn’t ask for the funds soon enough and that we don’t calculate the needs and possibly don’t know what we need until it’s too late. Neither contention is true. As a state agency that is tasked with providing counsel and processing the bills for same, we spend tremendous resources projecting trends and monitoring the case flow on a daily basis. Our projections are extremely accurate based on multiple year analysis and case type. Immediately after the FY 2017 General Appropriation was enacted we communicated that we were not appropriated sufficient funds to cover our projected need. We communicated with the Governor’s Office of Administration and Finance requesting additional funds. We also communicated to the House and Senate Ways and Means Committee leadership and staff that these funds needed to be forthcoming to allow us to meet our constitutional mandate to supply counsel. On a regular basis we have given updates to our funders to give them corroborating information on our projected need based on case load billed year to date.
In March we were able to secure a Supplemental Appropriation bill that included funding for the payment of many of our outstanding CPCS FY 2017 bills. The appropriation allocated $26,938,875 to our 0321-1510 – Private Counsel Compensation line item account and $4,118,994 to our 0321-1520 – Indigent Court Costs and Fees line item account. This appropriation was not the entire amount we needed for this fiscal year, and we immediately began communicating with the Legislature that we would need substantial further funding to finish out the year. The Governor’s Office of Administration and Finance and both House and Senate Ways and Means Committees have received many additional contacts from us concerning the need for this funding. Despite our efforts, the Commonwealth’s complicated fiscal landscape has slowed down the timetable for the legislature to consider these final FY 2017 needs. The budget process has been further complicated because overall state revenues collected through May have not met expectation and the Commonwealth is projected to be presently experiencing a $500 Million dollar shortfall. Final deficiency appropriations are generally taken up by the legislature after the upcoming fiscal year’s general appropriation is enacted. We expect that to be the timeline this year but we cannot say definitively that this will occur. We will keep you posted as much as possible going forward.
Sincerely,
Lisa M. Hewitt
General Counsel
617-910-5717
Committee for Public Counsel Services, 44 Bromfield Street, Boston, MA 02108
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Lisa M. Hewitt, General Counsel via auth.ccsend.com
4:16 PM (44 minutes ago)
Private bar advocates live under the constant threat of audits and reviews, bizarre financial structures that no one else would put up with such as being docked pay percentages for late bills and an 8-hour limit per day on billing even when working, say 16 hours in a single day prior to a trial date (absent a time-consuming begging letter); and absolutely no benefits or time off.
Despite this, in conjunction with an excellent public defender office, Massachusetts regularly is found to provide the best legal representation to the poor in the United States.
FY 18 budget underfunds private counsel line item by at least $50 million [I project by $65 million based on trajectory of the case load] – guarentees delayed payments and months with no pay for work done for clients.