State Funding for Civil Legal Services

A Histroic Break Through

April 1, 2007

Author: Anne Erickson

Unlike in prior years when funding for civil legal services was eliminated from the Executive Budget and subject to a last minute add-back by the Assembly Majority, the 2008 State Budget offered a number of historic “firsts” -

Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye included funding in her Judiciary Budget for the first time when she submitted her spending plan to in-coming Governor Eliot Spitzer last December.

Governor Spitzer included funding for civil legal services in his first Executive Budget marking the first time this funding was included in the initial budget submission.

The Senate Majority joined with the Assembly Majority for the first time in restoring the base funding for civil legal services in the final budget.

The Senate Minority, as a body, wrote to Governor Spitzer applauding him and urging him to expand and strengthen the new investment in civil legal services.

After “carrying” civil legal services in the state budget since 1993, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Judiciary Chair Helene Weinstein finally had the partnership needed to take a desperately needed leap forward.
The Results and Next Steps

When the dust finally settled after an intense rollercoaster of a frantic four final days of the budget negotiations, the state budget included:

• Restoration of $4.6 million in the base line item support for civil legal services;
• Allocation of funding from the Legal Services Assistance Fund for a combination of civil and criminal legal assistance;
• A new appropriation of $5 million in the OCA budget as requested by the Judiciary;
• A new appropriation of $3 million in the Executive budget for civil legal services; and
• An additional $4 million in spending authority for IOLA to increase its grant making if its interest earnings increase.

In the end, core state funding is stabilized and overall state funding is more than double what it has been for the last decade or more.  The two new appropriations in OCA and the Executive will be distributed based on a yet-to-be-determined process.

Not only were there historic break-throughs on the funding front, by the new Executive is committed to creating a more policy-based approach to funding civil legal services in New York.  The current “system” is fragmented and ad hoc, relying for years on the Assembly Majority to restore funding and create new opportunities where it could.

It is anticipated that in the coming months a new approach and process will be developed to put civil legal services more squarely within the state’s investment priorities.

In moving forward, the legal services community is recommending that the new unallocated funding for civil legal services be:

• used to strengthen and expand the current delivery system while ensuring access to legal assistance in all forums;
• allocated equitably across the state, using county by county poverty data;
• distributed in  an open process and in a way that streamlines the application and reporting process; and
• distributed on a statewide basis for both direct services and for training, support and backup services.

The community is urging the Governor and Legislative Leaders to consider creating more of an institutional “home” for state funding for legal services in New York.  Such an office or unit of state government would work to ensure that state funding is included in the state budget each year, periodically undertake needs assessments, identify emerging legal needs and help the community in reviewing and strengthening the statewide delivery system.

The discussions are on-going – which in itself is a dramatic change.  Previously, once the budget was finalized the discussions were over for the year.