Committee to tighten courthouse capital requests with capital‑plan and reserve‑fund checks

The House Corrections and Institutions Committee on April 16 discussed amendments to language tied to S.109 that would require review of counties’ capital programs and capital reserve funds before state courthouse capital requests are recommended for funding.

Committee members said the change aims to give the court administrator and the Legislature better information about whether counties are planning and saving for courthouse projects and to prevent requests where counties have not shown regular contributions to a reserve fund.

The proposal under consideration would add two criteria to the list used to evaluate county courthouse requests: whether a funding request is consistent with the county’s five‑year capital program (statutorily described in Title 24) and the status of the county’s capital reserve fund, including the amount of recent annual contributions. Terry Corazon, State Court Administrator, told the committee she had reviewed the language and the related statutory provisions and urged consistency with existing Title 24 terminology. Corazon said she…