Kansas courts brace for $3 million budget cut [View All]

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With prospects of a $3 million budget shortfall, courthouses across Kansas are bracing for having to shut down services that could affect public safety, consumers and local businesses.

It could slow criminal prosecutions, stall custody hearings in divorce cases and keep people from filing prevention from stalking orders for days, risking public safety.

Gov. Mark Parkinson, in announcing budget cuts across the state this week, let the courts know they would receive only $5 million of the $8 million they'd need to avoid furloughs, which could delay many services.

The shortfall originally resulted from legislative cuts last spring for the 2010 budget year which began July 1, 2009. What lawmakers originally called a "mistake" now looks to be more permanent, said Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Davis in a letter to court employees.

Studies, meanwhile, have shown that the cuts faced by Kansas courts and across the nation has had harsh impacts in other states.

Of all court costs in Kansas, 98 percent go to salaries.

"It is impossible to know for certain at this time, but this turn of events increases the likelihood of at least some period of involuntary unpaid leave," Davis wrote in the letter.

http://www.kansas.com/news/local/story/1072935.html