Authorizes the state comptroller to distribute certain funds from the indigent legal services fund to certain counties

Section 2 of the bill provides that the act would take effect immediately and would be deemed to have been in full force and effect on March 31, 2009.

Existing law

State Finance Law § 98-b establishes the ILSF, which is the fund through which OSC distributes the State contribution to indigent services to the counties and New York City. This year, the fund contains about $76.5 million.

To be eligible for its share of the fund, a county must meet an MOE formula designed to ensure that the State funds do not supplant local funds, and are used to improve the quality of indigent defense services. If counties fail to meet the MOE, they receive no State funds, and the shares of the non-compliant counties are distributed to the compliant counties. Under the law, all distributions from the ILSF from funds received during a calendar year must be made by March 31st of the following year.

Statement in support

This year, five counties, Delaware, Herkimer, Nassau, Otsego and Wayne, did not meet the MOE, and they are therefore not eligible to receive any funds from the ILSF as part of the March 31, 2009 distribution. If they had met the MOE, these counties would have received approximately $3 million. This loss of ILSF funding will place serious fiscal burdens on these counties, and the quality of indigent representation provided in the counties would likely suffer.

This bill would permit OSC, in the March 31, 2009 distribution, to make a full or partial ILSF distribution to the five counties that did not meet the MOE. These distributions would be made under either of two scenarios. First, if a county could establish that the amount of local funds expended in 2008 exceeded the average annual amount of local funds expended during 2005, 2006 and 2007, it could receive its full distribution from the fund. Second, if a county could not satisfy the three-year averaging formula, it would receive a distribution of ILSF funds, but its share would be reduced by the percentage decrease in local funds expended in the 2008 calendar year.

It is anticipated that, under the modified formula in this bill, Nassau County would qualify for a full distribution of ILSF funds, and that Delaware, Herkimer, Otsego and Wayne would receive reduced shares. The money not distributed to these four noncompliant counties would then be included in the amount to be distributed to the compliant counties. Because these distributions must be made by March 31, 2009, this bill must become law by March 27, 2009, in order to give OSC the time to re-calculate the amount of each county's distribution.

Budget implications

This bill will have no impact of the State financial plan but would provide fiscal relief to the five counties that did not meet the MOE formula.

Effective date

This bill would become effective immediately and would be deemed to have been in full force and effect on or before March 31, 2009.