Thursday, March 26, 2009

STUART — The Martin County Clerk of the Circuit Court laid off nine workers in response to a steep decline in fee and fine revenue, but the clerks in St. Lucie and Indian River counties said they don’t have to go that far yet.

Martin County Clerk Marsha Ewing said she was forced to resort to layoffs in response to projections showing a $400,000 deficit in court-related revenue.

“When your budget is 90 percent salaries, obviously, that’s where the cuts have to come from,” Ewing said. “It was the hardest decision I’ve had to make in my career but, unfortunately, I was forced to lay off nine people.”

Court clerks throughout Florida are facing similar revenue shortfalls because the recession has resulted in fewer people filing lawsuits and paying fines and service charges, Ewing and other court clerks said.

St. Lucie County Clerk Joe Smith and Jeff Smith, the chief deputy clerk in Indian River County, said they don’t anticipate laying off any workers in the near future, but that could change depending on what happens with the economy and the state Legislative session.

“We will not have layoffs this week,” Jeff Smith said. “We are barely holding our own at the present time. Of course, this situation is fluid and could change at anytime in the future, but as of now we don’t have layoffs planned for the near future.”

Joe Smith said he wants to avoid layoffs because St. Lucie County already has a relatively high unemployment rate and it is hard for people to find jobs.

“It always has to be a wait-and-see approach, but as of right now, we don’t see any layoffs in our future,” Joe Smith said. “That’s like a last resort kind of measure to make as far as layoffs and pay cuts. I don’t know if necessarily putting more people onto the street helps the broader economy.”

Clerks from across the state met last week with the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corp. to review their budgets and reassess cash flows. So far, clerks throughout the state have cut their current budgets by a total of $44 million, the clerks group said in a statement.

Ewing said she laid off two workers each in the criminal, civil and records management divisions and one each in the administration, court services and probate divisions. That leaves 95 workers in the clerk’s office, county records show.

The laid-off workers will get a week of severance pay for each year they served in the clerk’s office up to four weeks, plus any accrued leave time, Ewing said. Representatives from Workforce Solutions came in to help them fill out unemployment applications and provide them with job-hunting information.

Martin County Clerk’s budgets

2007 actual: $7,371,786

2008 Actual: $7,315,550

2009 Adjusted: $6,107,571

By George Andreassi, TCPalm.com

Tags: budget, Economy, layoffs, recession, unemployment

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