House committee adds reporting, clarifies criteria for county courthouse capital requests in draft amendment to S.109

House Corrections and Institutions members on April 22 reviewed proposed language to change how counties request state capital funds for courthouses, focusing on what information county side judges must provide to the court administrator and how the administrator should evaluate requests.

The committee considered Draft 2.1 of an amendment to the miscellaneous judiciary bill S.109. Eric Fitzpatrick of the Office of Legislative Council told the panel the draft would add specifics to the statutory criteria the court administrator uses when recommending whether county requests appear in the judiciary’s annual capital ask. Fitzpatrick said the draft clarifies that "the term court operations does not include operating expenses," so the changes apply only to capital projects.

The discussion centered on three proposed criteria added to the statute: whether a request is consistent with a capital program developed under 24 VSA §133 (replacing an earlier cross-reference to 24 VSA §44-30), whether the project is already listed in the county’s one-year budget of capital projects under 24 VSA §133(e), and whether the county has established a capital reserve fund under 24 VSA §133(e)(3) and what annual…