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

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Recommendation (5). The General Assembly may wish to direct the development of uniform and consistent procedures for the distribution of State funding for non-personnel costs in the constitutional offices. Options that could be considered are (1) a grant process, based on proposals for funding from the constitutional officers and specific evaluation criteria formaking each grant; or (2) a formula process, based on workload and staffing data which can be demonstrated to be related to non-personnel costs. Any revised process for funding non-personnel costs should recognize the ability of localities to pay for such costs. 18
Ill. Paying for Staffing Costs Once the costs of services provided by the constitutional officers have been calculated, it is necessary to determine the extent to which the State will pay for such costs, and what portion of costs local governments will be expected to fund. In determining how the State and local governments will share the costs for constitutional officers, it is important that localities be treated equitably. The State can ensure equity by fully funding State-mandated costs and by recognizing the relative abilities oflocal governments to pay for costs which are their responsibility. These goals can be accomplished by determining: (1) for each service provided, whether the cost responsibility should be assigned to the State, assigned to the localities, or shared between the State and localities; (2) how to treat costs that are shared between the State and localities, including how local financial ability could be taken into account; and (3) how to treat revenues collected by constitutional officers that may offset costs. ASSIGNING COST RESPONSIBILITY Determining whether the State, localities, or both should pay for a given service is the first step in establishing levels ofState funding. The assignment ofcost responsibility for some service categories can be based on objective measures, while for others the assignments will reflect policy choices ofthe General Assembly. To help in the process ofmaking the assignments ofcost responsibility, JLARe staffdeveloped a framework to evaluate the choices which must be made for each of the services provided by the constitutional officers. The purpose of the framework is to provide a systematic approach to the assignment of cost responsibility. For this study, the framework was used to develop alternative, illustrative sets of cost responsibility assignments for each category of services provided by constitutional officers. A Framework for Assigning Cost Responsibility The underlying premise of the framework for assigning cost responsibility is that the level of government which mandates a service should pay for the service. In those situations in which both the State and the local goverments mandate or request the service, the costs should be shared based on the relative benefits that the State and localities receive. This general approach is applied to the services provided by constitutional officers by evaluating two criteria: '" Is there a clear State requirement or request for the service? @ Is the service ,.,.,-I-Ih"" recognized by the State as a part of the normal local g01vernnlerlt opeJrati0I1, or generally provided at the request of local government oWlci2US"t
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 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
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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
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- DISAGREES that any stan rd should
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RECOMMENDATION 1. The General Assem
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determining judicial needs. As a re
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In the budget process currently use
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It is a common misconception that t
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The development of state/local perc
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The Compensation Board AGREES with
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AppendixG JLARC StaffComments on th
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officers could maintain monthly rec
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expertise, level of automation, nat
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such as is available in education f
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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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