At a time when it is fashionable to castigate government for either doing too little or too much; for wasting taxpayer dollars or not making adequate investments, Connecticut's Judicial Branch and its administrators deserve kudos for their efforts to move the branch forward while struggling with the burden of significant budget cuts.
Shortly following Chase T. Rogers' appointment as chief justice in 2007, the national and state economies began to crater. Over the past five budget cycles, the Judicial Branch, like its legislative and executive counterparts, has been asked to absorb significant cuts while maintaining its constitutional and statutory obligations to provide timely and equal access to justice. In the 2012 fiscal year alone, the General Fund budget for the branch was $50 million less than required to effectively operate in the preceding two years. On top of that, the court system was required to absorb an additional $10 million in budgetary rescissions imposed as part of the legislature's deficit mitigation plan. While the Judicial Branch's budget of approximately $500 million represents only 2.5 percent of the state budget, it has been asked to absorb almost three times that amount in cuts.
