Sustaining Drug Courts in Arizona and South Carolina: An Experience in Hodgepodge Budgeting*

Justice System Journal, 2004 by Douglas, James W, Hartley, Roger E

We interviewed officials responsible for twelve drug court circuits in Arizona and eight drug court circuits in South Carolina. For the purposes of our study we define a drug court circuit as a centralized office that administers the activities of one or more drug courts within its jurisdiction. Most (fifteen) of the drug court circuits we studied consisted of only one drug court. Five, however, administered more than one court. For example, the GiIa County drug court office in Arizona administered the activities of one juvenile and one adult drug court, while the drug court office operating out of Beaufort County, South Carolina, administered three adult drug courts. We used the drug court circuit as the unit of analysis because funding for all courts within each circuit was centralized out of the circuit's administrative office. As a result, each circuit's funds were often maintained in single accounts that overlapped between courts within circuits and, therefore, could not be separated by court for purposes of our study. The twenty drug court circuits under examination administered sixteen adult, nine juvenile, and two family drug courts. For purposes of simplicity, unless otherwise noted, we refer to each drug court circuit as a "drug court." Thus, we refer to twenty drug courts (twelve in Arizona and eight in South Carolina). The drug courts varied in their age, ranging from ten years old to the planning stages. This variation in age allowed us to learn about how drug courts were being planned in newer programs and how older programs had dealt with their funding realities over time.

In each state, we interviewed officials who would know the most about the establishment and administration of each specific circuit. These officials varied in some respects depending upon who had the most knowledge of the drug court program. In South Carolina we interviewed eight drug court administrators, one judge, and one statewide official (the director of grants administration for the state Department of Public Safety). In Arizona we interviewed eleven drug court administrators, two judges, one law enforcement official, and the drug court policy specialist for the state Administrative Office of the Courts. The interviews were conducted both by phone and face-to-face from june 22 to july 23 in 2002.

DRUG COURT FINANCING: AN EXPERIENCE IN HODGEPODGE BUDGETING

The creation of drug courts in both Arizona and South Carolina is largely the product of local interests and initiatives. Local officials in a particular jurisdiction decide that establishing a drug court will be beneficial to their community. They then seek the means to create and operate the court. Turning to the state is an option, but the lack of a centralized drug court system in either state means that obtaining permanent and stable state funding is unlikely, at least initially. Resource scarcity at the county level means that getting significant start-up money from that source, much less a long-term financial commitment, is improbable as well. As a result, most drug courts in Arizona and South Carolina were established using seed money from federal and state grants. This creates two phases of financing: start-up and continuation. During the start-up phase, drug courts in the two states are heavily dependent upon temporary grant funding. As this funding comes to an end, drug courts engage in a frantic search for resources that can sustain their operations. The result for most is a hodgepodge budgeting arrangement that requires ingenuity, opportunism, and luck to build and maintain programs.