Ouch!
Budget boosts occupational tax, guts law libraries, raises filing fees again
By CHRISTIAN NOLAN
The cost of practicing law just went up.
All private sector attorneys in the state must now ante up an additional $115 for their occupational tax. The annual payment will jump from $450 to $565.
Other details emerged late last week from the new state budget that was approved by the Democratic legislature and will become law without the endorsement of Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell.
With the state trying to close huge projected deficits, there was a second round of court filing fee increases and severe cuts to courthouse library budgets.
The one bit of good news is that the state’s budget crunch did not directly force the closure of any courthouses. As many as six of them – those in Meriden, Manchester, Derby, Bristol, Norwalk and Putnam – had been mentioned by the governor as possible targets, despite loud protests from lawmakers, lawyers and merchants in those communities.
Still, Judicial Branch officials were told to eliminate $1.3 million per year from their courthouse operations budget for each of the next two years. “That $1.3 million is probably equivalent to [running the Bristol courthouse], for example, but statute requires us to hold court in Bristol,” said Melissa Farley, executive director of external affairs for the Judicial Branch. “Our plan is to figure out a way to absorb the $1.3 million cut without closing any courthouses.”
As for the courthouse law libraries, the legislature has eliminated money to buy new and updated materials. Farley said closing one or more of the libraries is under consideration.
The budget cuts would affect roughly 15 courthouse libraries as well as those serving the state Appellate and Supreme courts. Last fiscal year, the Judicial Branch spent roughly $2.4 a year to buy new books, purchase access to online legal databases and keep periodical subscriptions current. The branch had requested $4.9 million for the upcoming two-year budget.
“That will be a huge problem because that $4.9 million includes the purchase of law library books and subscriptions for Internet-based research services that the judges rely upon to issue their opinions and do their research,” Farley said.
Also as part of the new budget bill, all state judges will be required to take three furlough days. Farley said the judges had already volunteered to take the days prior to lawmakers declaring it mandatory.
‘Expectations Of Savings’
According to state Sen. Andrew McDonald, co-chair of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, things could have been worse.
“I argued that the governor and the legislature shouldn’t be in the business of determining what courthouses are critical to the operation of the Judicial Branch,” he said. “That’s up to the Judicial Branch to determine. There’s no closure of courthouses but there were expectations of savings within the Judicial Branch. How those are achieved is something the branch has authority to determine.”
McDonald, a lawyer at Pullman & Comley, said lawyers shouldn’t feel so bad compared to some professions when it comes to their occupational tax increase.
State marshals will see their annual levy rise from $250 to $750. Private detectives now paying $1,200 will be hit up for $1,450. Every other profession imaginable also saw increases, from dental hygienists to barbers, speech pathologists to massage therapists.
“There was initially some interest on the part of a few legislators to have the occupational tax be a function of revenues earned by attorneys or law firms,” said McDonald. “Many of us resisted that because of the administrative bureaucratic nightmare of actually processing such a system. But this increase in the occupational tax is consistent with the other increases for architects, accountants and a whole host of others.”
Public sector attorneys, such as prosecutors, public defenders, and those employed by government agencies, are still exempt from the tax.
Earlier this summer, the state approved a wide range of filing fee increases to raise money for cash-strapped legal aid agencies, which help low-income clients. Now the legislature has boosted some other filing feels, this time to raise money for the state’s general fund. The second set of fee hikes will take effect Sept. 8.
The cost of filing a small claims case will go from $35 to $75. The fee for a motion filed to transfer a small claims case to the Superior Court docket rises from $75 to $125.
The price for motions to open, set aside, modify, or extend any civil judgment rendered in Superior Court for any housing matter will increase from $35 to $75.
The cost of filing an application from a judgment creditor requesting enforcement of an unsatisfied judgment, including debts due from any financial institution to a judgment debtor, increases from $35 to $75.
Lastly, the cost will rise from $120 to $175 to file a case in which the sole claim for relief is damages and the amount, legal interest, or property in demand is less than $2,500. The fee for summary process, landlord and tenant, and paternity actions will also go to $175.
The court filing increases are expected to raise $4.8 million in the current fiscal year and $6.4 million in the following year.
“I don’t know of any legislator who embraces all of the cuts and revenue adjustments in this budget,” said McDonald. “There’s enough in here for everybody to hate but it was necessary. It was the most grueling political exercise I’ve ever witnessed.”•
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