Judicial Council of Georgia Requests Budget Increase

The council is asking state lawmakers for seven items as part of the extra $1.7 million dollars its requesting. The council’s top two priorities are funding for more judicial education, and an additional employee to oversee certification of accountability courts after the position was lost in July. The council also wants funding to assist it as it works to establish an e-filing system for every trial court in the state. Marla Moore is Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts.

“We feel these are all important issues, but we understand we are not in flush times by any means, and we just hope if there’s an opportunity we can work with some folks and get some of these things accomplished.“

And Moore says the largest budgetary request is more than $772,000 dollars for a fund that provides grant money for civil legal services for victims of domestic violence.

“That funding had been up to $2.25 million before the recession and with the erosion of the budget cuts had gotten down to $1.7 million, and the need for those services has grown really kind of exponentially with economy and what happened with it, so we’re asking for not only that funding to be returned but for a little bit more.”

The request comes after a number of tight fiscal years, where like many others that receive funding from the state budget, the council experienced several years of cuts.