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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The Compensation Board AGREES with the staff recommendation that the General Assembly may wish to consider adoption of a required local matching portion of constitutional officer funding. The Compens3tion Board notes, however, that local funding for Commonwealth Attorney offices may present some problems, as Commonwealth Attorneys are called upon to render opinions which may be contrary to the interests of the local governing body. This potential should be addressed and a solution determined, because prosecutors are charged with the responsibility of overseeing the conduct of local officials and prosecuting them when their conduct goes beyond accepted ethical standards. Implicit in the present funding concept is that these decisions should be made independently of local pressures. JLARC, on the other hand, would place the prosecutor in the position of having to consider the potential political and fiscal implications of decisions he must make. Doing away with the buffer afforded by the Compensation Board will do a substantial disservice to the public by tying the prosecutor too closely to the whims of local officials. Whenever prosecutorial decisions involve those officials, their friends or political supporters, the potential for those decisions to be based on improper motives is significantly enhanced. Real or apparent, the conflict involved will reduce the public's confidence that the prosecutor is simply concerned with seeing that justice is done. The Compensation Board would also like for the General Assembly to consider extending the constitutional officer right of appeal to a three judge panel to include local governments as well. In many instances, constitutional officers are required by their local governments to perform duties for which they are not staffed, only to have the Compensation Board deny additional funding because the duties are local in nature. The constitutional officer is then placed in a position of appealing a Compensation Board budget decision which was created by the local government. The study does not address the need of Constitutional Officers to reserve the right of appeal. Regardless of the actions taken on the study, Officers must maintain their rights to appeal their budgets. A body or procedure independent of the local government must exist to settle budgetary disputes between the Officers and the local governing body. The study provides only a method to meet the local portion of state funding. The study does not, however, address the need of Officers to get funding beyond this level. Where local mandates are placed on these Officers there exists no procedure to ensure that the local governing body provides funds to meet these mandates. Constitutional Officers must have a means of getting this funding through an appeal process. The Compensation Board DISAGREES with the staff recommendation concerning a pre-payment or block grant system for constitutional officers. Some will argue that block grant funding is easier to control, and localities will, therefore, be able to better budget 92
these offices. There will, also, be a loss of ability to respond to emergency or unique situations. The Board believes that a compromise between the current funding methods and the ability to respond to individual needs should be developed. This compromise may take the form of annual individual budget hearing with quarterly disbursement of funds. Alternatives exist and should be explored before the implementation of block grant funding. The Commonwealth should not lose the ability to respond to the individual needs of the Constitutional Officers and localities. The study does not address the question of what agency would have final approval authority for setting staffing standards. This should be addressed. 93
Page 3 and 4:
REPORT OF THE LEGISLATIVE AUDIT AND
Page 5:
Preface State funding for constitut
Page 8 and 9:
e local governments' relative abili
Page 10 and 11:
the constitutional offispecific eva
Page 12 and 13:
current process, some changes in sy
Page 15:
Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION 1
Page 18 and 19:
ROLES OF THE STATE AND LOCAL GOVERN
Page 20 and 21:
missioner of revenue, treasurer, an
Page 22 and 23:
STUDY APPROACH JLARC staff develope
Page 24 and 25:
differences in the ability of local
Page 26 and 27:
cost responsibility for each catego
Page 28 and 29:
Exhibit 1 Workload Factors Used in
Page 30 and 31:
account for regional differences in
Page 32 and 33:
Recommendation (3). The General Ass
Page 34 and 35:
Recommendation (5). The General Ass
Page 36 and 37:
cost re~;ponsJlbiJjty State should
Page 38 and 39:
Exhibit 3, a "yes" has been placed
Page 40 and 41:
For some other service categories,
Page 42 and 43:
A variety of other revenue sources
Page 44 and 45:
------------- Exhibit5-------------
Page 46 and 47:
greater or equal to 1.0 can raise m
Page 48 and 49:
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 100 and 101: determining judicial needs. As a re
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 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
show all

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

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?