Foreclosures could be sped up if lawmakers give the court system about $9.8 million in an era when they’re looking to cut criminal and civil justice spending by up to $500 million this year.

Judge Belvin Perry of the Ninth Judicial Circuit and chairman of the state court system trial court budget committee, told a Senate committee this morning that the courts could set up an “economic default recovery” division staffed by senior judges and hourly workers to serve as case managers until the backlog of foreclosures now clogging the judicial branch is managed.

The new division could be broken up into three tracts for homesteaded, abandoned or commercial properties.

The $9.8 million for the new division would come from the court’s trust fund made up of court filing fees.

Lawmakers increased the foreclosure filing fees last year and they went from $295 to up to $1,900, depending on the value of the mortgage.

“This is a way to take the money that they’ve paid in filing fees to give them the services that they paid for.
About 80 percent of our trust fund is generated by the filing fees in mortgage foreclosures and they’ve gotten absolutely no additional services as a result in the increase in fees,” Perry said.

Perry said that a proposal floating in the legislature that would allow mortgage lenders or banks to foreclose on properties without going through the courts probably won’t have any impact on the cases clogging the courts now.

That’s because current mortgages – more than 500,000 in the foreclosure pipeline already – are based upon contract law and must be dealt with in the courts.

Mortgages would have to be written as trusts for foreclosures to avoid being processed by the courts, he said.

“I think it would be difficult to do,” Perry said.

One brave senator and a few courageous volunteers sampled the controversial prison ‘food loaf’ banned in some states that drew questions during a criminal justice budget meeting last week.

Sen. Arthenia Joyner asked prison officials last week to give her the nutritional value of the culinary concoction – also called “behavior modification loaf,” “nutri-loaf” or “suicide loaf” – used to punish misbehaving prisoners.

This morning, Department of Corrections Chief of Staff Richard Prudom arrived at the Senate committee meeting with two loaves of the questionable meal and the “special management meal” recipe.

The meeting ended without Joyner, D-Tampa, or any other committee member sampling the loaf, which resembles a holiday fruitcake with visible chunks of carrot instead of citrus.

But Chairman Victor Crist gave in when urged to try it and conducted an ad-hoc taste test with a Senate aide, a reporter and a lobbyist.

The consensus: the worst thing about the loaf is its consistency, which one guinea pig likened to “something that’s been eaten before.”

“It’s not real tasty.”

“It doesn’t smell bad.”

“It’s awful.”

The recipe calls for carrots, spinach, black-eyed peas, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, grits, water and oats.

DOC’s loaves, baked at the nearby Wakulla Correctional Institution, had an overpowering smell of spinach and a mushy consistency with a bland taste that, while far from a gastronomical delight, did not induce a gag reflex when sniffed, chewed or swallowed.

But Crist said that, with a little gravy and heated up as the recipe calls for, most people probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the loaf and genuine meat loaf.

“I don’t find anything offensive about it,” Crist, R-Tampa, said, “but it’s not something I’d order off the menu.”

After dissing Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink for gloating about skimping on paper clips, Attorney General Bill McCollum appears to have taken a liking to her cost-cutting measure.

Spending less on office supplies and reusing paper clips and file folders could save taxpayers about $238,000 a year, McCollum’s director of administration John Hamilton told the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee this morning.

Oops.

Just a few weeks ago, McCollum mocked Sink’s efforts to stop buying non-mission critical office supplies until the end of the fiscal year in June, a savings that she estimates could be $200,000. If all the state followed her lead, taxpayers could save $14 million according to the Democratic candidate for governor.

“While Alex Sink focuses on rationing paperclips and paper products, Bill McCollum is focused on finding solutions to the severe economic challenges we face,” McCollum’s campaign said in a press release late last month.

McCollum’s campaign spokeswoman Kristy Campbell had this to say in response to our blog:

“Attorney General McCollum has remained to curbing wasteful spending throughout his tenure in office. Unfortunately, CFO Alex Sink has consistently used her office for political public relations stunts and for attacking her opponent on the taxpayers dime,” Campbell wrote in an e-mail.

And Democratic Party of Florida spokesman Eric Jotkoff had his own snap:

“We’re glad to see that career politician Bill McCollum is finally showing some concern for Florida taxpayers and eating his wrong-headed attacks on Alex Sink, even if it took some coaxing and cajoling, at least the Attorney General is finally following CFO Sink’s leadership in cutting wasteful government spending,” Jotkoff wrote in a press release.

Read the related article by Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino, Governor’s race
 an all-out battle 
of self-promotion

Attorneys involved in the Florida House’s investigation into allegations that former Republican House Speaker Ray Sansom betrayed the public trust met briefly this morning to review Sansom’s list of 35 witnesses who will receive a subpoena.

But there are doubts about whether the case will get far enough for any of the witnesses to testify. Rep. Bill Galvano, a Sarasota Republican heading the House’s investigation, said the past several similar hearings had been settled. He met with Sansom’s attorneys on Monday to begin those talks.

For now, though, both sides are taking a hard line.

“I don’t expect this to be resolved outside of a full-blown hearing,” Sansom’s attorney Gloria Fletcher said.

Sansom’s subpoena list includes Republican Sens. Joe Negron, Dennis Jones, Mike Haridopolos and Don Gaetz; Reps. Marti Coley, R-Marianna, and Mary Brandenburg, D-West Palm Beach; former Rep. Joe Pickens, R-Palatka; and former House Speaker Marco Rubio, R-West Miami.