The reward for prudent budgeting and responsible spending appears to be a state raid as the Governor hones in on court reserves to help balance the state budget.

Many court systems are now facing drastic cuts because they had been slowing using reserve funds to mitigate some of the lost revenue over the past few years. That was the planned approach to the next three years of budgeting in LA County. By stretching reserve funds, administrators had hoped to spare the system some of the most devastating cuts.

This year’s cuts, roughly $300 million from the operating budgets and another $244 million in assorted cuts, comes on top of four years of successive cuts amounting to more than $650 million.

From the San Bernardino Sun:

Numerous state and local government agencies are preparing for the possibility of profound budget cuts, and California’s court system is no different.

Courts up and down the state are preparing for $544 million in cuts from the 2012-2013 fiscal year, according to the Judicial Council of California, the policy-making body of the California courts.

Read the full article here.