DC Courts

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the District of Columbia Courts' (DC Courts) fiscal year (FY) 2001 budget request and related issues, focusing on: (1) whether DC Courts' FY 2001 budget was reasonable; (2) what were DC Courts' obligations and payments for FY 1999 operations, including totals charged for the Criminal Justice Act, Counsel for Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Guardianship programs; and (3) what are the DC Courts' obligations and payments related to its court operations and defender services to date for FY 2000.

GAO noted that: (1) GAO could not conclude on the reasonableness of DC Courts' FY 2001 budget request that was originally submitted to the Office of Management Budget (OMB); (2) DC Courts did not submit the detailed information required by OMB Circular A-11 along with its FY 2001 budget request to OMB, but subsequently provided in April 2000 a more detailed budget justification to OMB and Congress; (3) even though DC Courts subsequently provided the documentation that was needed to support the proposed increases, GAO could not determine the reasonableness of all budget increases; (4) DC Courts officials stated that the required detailed information would be submitted along with future budget requests to OMB; (5) DC Courts also did not have adequate documentation to support the funds projected for the defender services for FY 2001; (6) DC Courts' records indicated that more than $132 million was obligated and spent for FY 1999; (7) the amount included more than $36.4 million of payments to court-appointed attorneys for defender services, $6.2 million of which was for unpaid obligations that were properly carried over for fiscal years 1996, 1997, and 1998; (8) DC Courts' records indicated that more than $62 million was obligated for the first 6 months of FY 2000; (9) according to DC Courts' FY 2000 spending plan, the obligations for the fiscal year are projected to be $137 million and within the budgetary resources that were made available for FY 2000; (10) the projected obligations include more than $4.9 million of carried forward defender service obligations from FY 1999; (11) while DC Courts' spending plan projected sufficient funds for defender services, questions have arisen as to whether the spending plan accurately reflects amounts it anticipates for defender services; (12) in April 2000, DC Courts officials estimated that an additional $6 million is needed to pay defender services for FY 2000, and they have reserved FY 2000 operating funds for that purpose; (13) DC Courts did not provide sufficient documentation to support the projected additional defender service obligations or exactly how it expected to reduce current operating costs to establish the reserve; and (14) since the passage of the District of Columbia's Fiscal Year 2000 Appropriation Act, DC Courts' records indicate that it has properly stopped using Crime Victim Funds for administrative costs.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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