Judiciary committee signals support for supplemental-budget items, asks staff to send a report to Appropriations

The Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary on Monday continued its work session on the governor’s supplemental budget and directed staff to prepare a report-back memo for the Appropriations Committee that records the panel’s support for a set of initiatives raised during the public hearing.

Committee chairs and staff opened by reminding members that most of the governor’s proposed language had already been reviewed and that the purple handout distributed at the meeting listed the proposed amendments the committee had tabled. Staff asked members whether items the committee heard in testimony should be added to the supplemental or simply noted as supported in the report-back memo.

The committee voted to include several items in the memo. It supported adding an ongoing $3,000,000 increase for the Maine Civil Legal Services Fund’s baseline so providers do not lose capacity when one-time funds expire, a motion that passed with a majority and four members recorded in opposition. On victim-advocate pay, the committee endorsed adding $2,000,000 to the baseline to stabilize salaries for sexual-assault victim advocates; advocates said the baseline change would reduce turnover and prevent a re-run of last year’s staffing losses. “We absolutely believe that this should be funded,” Representative Adam Lee said during discussion, urging the committee to record its support.

Members also revisited funding for the public defender system (PDS). Staff and the PDS executive director explained both the short-term backfill need and a longer-term plan to build out an employed-counsel system. Executive Director Veil Turpinian told members that establishing offices in under-served regions is intended to “stabilize the market” and that the proposal would not immediately cover a third of all cases, but would build capacity where lists remain high. The committee agreed it supports funding the PDS shortfall; members were divided, however, over whether the money should come from the Budget Stabilization Fund or other general-fund mechanisms. Staff will reflect that division in the memo.

On a technical correction to the language for the funding transfer in Part T (assigned counsel support), staff explained the committee had amended the amount and intended to clarify that the transfer’s purpose is to address an assigned-counsel shortfall rather than to satisfy a federal requirement — a change the committee endorsed for the record.

The committee also heard from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner about LD137, a request to move certain employees into the 1998 special retirement plan; Chief Medical Examiner staff described the request as an attempt to secure a retirement option after multiple prior attempts. The panel did not move the bill into the supplemental budget as an initiative but agreed to include its support in the memo so Appropriations sees the committee’s views.

On courthouse funding and LD1997 (bonding authority for additional counties that would cover Newport), the Judicial Branch’s director of legal affairs said the underlying bond authority likely covers the need and advised that including language in the supplemental would be precautionary; members agreed to put a support note in the memo rather than amend the budget text.

Several matters did not make it into the memo. A proposed amendment to the voter-approved red-flag law that would allow after-hours petitioning by family members and broaden the range of judicial officers to include justices of the peace drew extensive judicial-branch concerns about training, forms and fiscal impacts; the committee voted not to include that amendment in its report-back memo.

Next steps: staff (Janet and Eli) will draft the committee report-back memo reflecting the votes and the committee’s guidance, circulate it to the chairs (and to a Republican reviewer), and file it with Appropriations by the posted deadline.