Funding of Constitutional Officers - Virginia Joint Legislative Audit ...

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determining judicial needs. As a result, the General Assembly has assigned additional Circuit Court judges to localities at the same time JLARC is recommending cutting the prosecutor's staff. Unless there is some consistency in evaluating the needs of each component of the system, an unbalanced system will result. JLARC staff should explain why they believe that caseload statistics are valid indicators of judicial needs but invalid when applied to prosecutors. II. COURT SECURITY STAFFING JLARC staffing standards call for nearly 148 additional court security officers statewide. The basis for this standard is "judicial mandate." The General Assembly has recognized the demands placed on Sheriffs by JUdges, and included language in the Appropriation Act which limits court security personnel to 1 in General District Court for criminal cases and 2 in Circuit Courts for criminal cases. None are provided for J & DR Courts. Further, the Appropriation Act states that " .... the sheriff may consider other deputies present in the courtroom as part of his security force." In the event of a disagreement hetween a Sheriff and a Judge, concerning court security staffing, the Code of Virginia stipulates that the Compensation Board shall settle the matter within current funding levels. The Compensation Board maintains that both the "judicial mandate" used by JLARC and language in the Appropriation Act are inappropriate for use as a standard and are not objective. Staffing for court security has two major considerations, first, the physical layout of the courtroom and accessibility to it (e.g., doors and windows) and secondly, the nature of the case being heard. These considerations were not addressed by the study. The workload standards used in the JLARC study come from a survey of what duties the Constitutional Officers perform. This method of data gathering does give a basis for determining workload standards, but fails to recognize certain inconsistencies among the localities. Additionally, the method fails to eliminate duties which officers perform beyond those set forth in the Code of Virginia. As an example, the Commissioner of Revenue in one of the largest localities performs not only the assessment of new property and construction, but the entire re-assessment function. Re-assessment of the entire locality is not a normal or statutory duty of the Commissioner's Office. 84
Workload standards should accomplish two goals. The first goal is to measure the staff needs of Offices to meet their statutory mandates. When Officers perform duties beyond these basic statutory mandates, they should not benefit from this election. Secondly, when statutes allow Officers several alternatives to meet their responsibilities, the standards should serve as a Statewide measure of performance to distribute positions. We believe ~he staff's development of standards does not meet either of these goals. The Board has undertaken the development of workload standards over the past three years after discussions with and assistance of constitutional officer associations. We recognize the difficulty in setting Statewide standards, but believe this is a more equitable method. The Board wishes to advise the Commission that the use of standard workload measures may cost the Commonwealth additional funding. Since workload standards are a primary par~ of funding, localities will move functions into these Offices under the standards developed by the staff. As in our example, if re-assessment is part of the locality's funding base then the Assessor's Offices funded directly by the locality will be moved to the Commissioner's Office. As an alternative to JLARC Board suggests the following: recommendation (1), the Compensation The General Assembly may wish to consider requiring the Compensation Board to develop staffing standards for constitutional officers, and require that the Compensation Board consider these standards prior to allocating additional positions. The Standards should be based on measurable statutory required duties. In developing the standards, the Compensation Board should allow for participation and input of the constitutional officers and their associations. Recommendation (2). The General Assembly may wish to establish a statewide average staff salary for each constitutional office for use in determining the costs recognized for State funding. WE DISAGREE. The compensation Board has established uniform salary scales for all positions in all constitutional offices. Job classifications, pay grades and salary steps were developed in cooperation with the Department of Personnel and Training some years ago. This results in, for example, the salary of a deputy sheriff in Lee County with 2 years experience being reimbursed by the Compensation Board at the same amount as a deputy sheriff in Gloucester County. Perhaps more importantly, it results in 2 employees in the same office having identical experience and assigned duties receiving the same rate of pay. 85
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REPORT OF THE LEGISLATIVE AUDIT AND
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Preface State funding for constitut
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e local governments' relative abili
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the constitutional offispecific eva
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current process, some changes in sy
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Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION 1
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ROLES OF THE STATE AND LOCAL GOVERN
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missioner of revenue, treasurer, an
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STUDY APPROACH JLARC staff develope
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differences in the ability of local
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cost responsibility for each catego
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Exhibit 1 Workload Factors Used in
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account for regional differences in
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Recommendation (3). The General Ass
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Recommendation (5). The General Ass
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cost re~;ponsJlbiJjty State should
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Exhibit 3, a "yes" has been placed
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For some other service categories,
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A variety of other revenue sources
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------------- Exhibit5-------------
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greater or equal to 1.0 can raise m
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are divided evenly between the Stat
Page 50: a COJmnlOIllW€:a!t;h ft..,Uy,,, .
Page 53 and 54: The reimbursement cycle begins when
Page 55 and 56: process occurs prior to the assessm
Page 57: Appendixes ~ Appendix A: Study Mand
Page 60 and 61: AppendixB Mathematical Formulas Use
Page 62 and 63: Appendix B (Continued) Personnel Co
Page 64 and 65: Appendix B (Continued) Revenue Capa
Page 66 and 67: Appendix B (Continued) Personnel Co
Page 68 and 69: Appendix: C Cost ResponsibilityAssi
Page 70 and 71: Appendix C (Continued) COST RESPONS
Page 72 and 73: Appendix C (Continued) COST RESPONS
Page 74: AppendixD Local Revenue Capacity fo
Page 77 and 78: Examples J.i"U.nClLlng 'O.J'U'..u''
Page 79 and 80: State and Support for Sheriffs Offi
Page 82 and 83: ~ ~ State and Local Support for Com
Page 84 and 85: Ou,a~ll;;; and for Local J:l,;xBI.m
Page 86 and 87: State and Local Support for Sheriff
Page 88 and 89: Local for Court Clerks: Example 2
Page 90 and 91: •••••••••••
Page 92 and 93: AppendixF Agency Response As partof
Page 94 and 95: Introduction The Compensation Board
Page 96 and 97: - DISAGREES that any stan rd should
Page 98 and 99: RECOMMENDATION 1. The General Assem
Page 102 and 103: In the budget process currently use
Page 104 and 105: It is a common misconception that t
Page 106 and 107: The development of state/local perc
Page 108 and 109: The Compensation Board AGREES with
Page 110 and 111: AppendixG JLARC StaffComments on th
Page 112 and 113: officers could maintain monthly rec
Page 114 and 115: expertise, level of automation, nat
Page 116 and 117: such as is available in education f
Page 118 and 119: etween workload indicators and the
Page 120 and 121: government operations. This is expl
Page 122: Recent JLARC Reports Organization o
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