The governor’s budget director says he’s been told by a top court official that the computer programming error that has improperly distributed over 53 million dollars in court fees and fines has not been fixed.
“My understanding is that the system is still not corrected and I have offered assistance to the chief justice and she is taking me up on that and we’re meeting here very soon, as in yet this week,” Iowa Department of Management director Krai Paulsen told reporters late this morning. “…We don’t have the code, we haven’t seen the code and by this I mean the programming code and so that all has to be analyzed, but it is my understanding that the errant distributions continue to this day.”
The Judicial Branch has not issued a statement on the situation, which Paulsen and House Speaker Pat Grassley disclosed to the media earlier this week. Paulsen said the state fund for road and bridge projects has been shorted by nearly $10 million over the past few years, for example, and some of the money it should be getting is still being sent elsewhere. Paulsen said he’ll discuss all the misdirected funds with the chief justice.
“What has to be corrected from what’s already been done and how do we fix this prospectively,” Paulsen said.
The state court system is an independent branch of state government. However, the legislature and governor approve the budget for the courts. Spending levels for several programs that were changed five years ago were not programmed correctly into the court’s computer system. Paulsen said court officials have given his department spreadsheets explaining the under-funding and where the over-payments have gone.
“Some counties got more than the distribution dictated or the law dictated and some got less, so on and so forth and we’re going through that right now,” Paulsen said this morning. “It’s a lot of money and a lot of different distributions. It’s going to take a little bit to unwind.”
Paulsen believes the age of the computer system for Iowa courts “is a factor in this,” but he’ll find out more when he meets with the Iowa Supreme Court’s chief justice.