Understanding the (overbudget) Judgment and Claims Fund

The biggest piece of bad news in the proposed budget package that Mayor Burgess delivered to the City Council was a big deficit in a line-item that almost no one has heard of: the Judgment and Claims Subfund. Subsequently, it became a point of debate between the two candidates for City Attorney, incumbent Pete Holmes and insurgent Scott Lindsay, with accusations that Holmes has been mismanaging his budget for outside counsel. Let’s dig in to the Judgment and Claims Fund, look at what it is (and isn’t), and understand why it’s so far over budget this year.

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