Joe Surkiewicz

Special to The Daily Record

May 4, 2009

The conventional wisdom says the legal services community dodged a bullet fired by the General Assembly, which threatened to cut $500,000 in funding to the Maryland Legal Services Corp. and to tie the Maryland Disability Law Center's funding to a financial document requirement.

The first threat is understandable, given the current (choose one) recession/depression. Every nickel coming out of Annapolis was under scrutiny in the just-ended General Assembly session.

The blast at MDLC, however, was out of left field, totally unexpected.

Yet both threats were averted, The Daily Record reported last month ("No cuts, conditions for legal services in Maryland," April 13).

And private nonprofits who help the poor with their civil legal problems heaved a collective sigh of relief.

Perhaps prematurely, it turns out.

MDLC is now required to submit multiple reports - including not only its annual audits going back to 2004, which are already available to lawmakers, but the names of those "private, nonprofit and government organizations" MDLC assisted.

While the reports aren't tied to MDLC's funding, many in the legal services community are worried that the reporting requirement was a warning shot fired across the bow of organizations serving low-income disabled people, as well as those helping the elderly, abused and neglected children, the unemployed, immigrants - and the poor in general.

"One of our fundamental activities is to be a watchdog," said MDLC executive director Virginia Knowlton. "We conduct abuse and neglect investigations at state-operated facilities - it is at the very core of our mission. These activities can make us unpopular with those who may be less supportive of the civil rights of people with disabilities."

Knowlton said there's no reason for the heightened scrutiny of MDLC.

"We are concerned that under the guise of a purely fiscal inquiry, we are being asked to reveal the names of all groups to whom we have provided 'technical assistance' since 2004," she said. "That is a non-sequitur. The legislature can already access our annual independent financial audits, and they are all clean."

So why did the conference committee feel compelled to restore language - language that was overwhelmingly defeated on the Senate floor - that requires MDLC to report the names of those "private, nonprofit and government organizations" it assisted?

"No justification has been given for this information request," Knowlton said.

And no reasons were given by Del. Norman H. Conway, D-Worcester/Wicomico, chairman of the House Budget & Tax Committee and a member of the conference committee for the budget which approved the requirement. He didn't return my phone call.

MLSC executive director Susan Erlichman is figuratively scratching her head over the documentation requirement.

"The state is entitled to all the audits of our grantees," Erlichman said. "All of our grantees, including MDLC, are subject to state scrutiny. We do a very thorough job of monitoring all the programs we fund. Most would probably describe it as 'onerous.'"

Singled-out

Cristine Marchand, executive director of The Arc of Maryland, the largest statewide advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, wonders why MDLC was singled out.

"MDLC is meeting the requirements of why it exists," Marchand said. "The concern is that the government could go beyond one entity. Is it meant to chill and intimidate other nonprofit, civil justice groups?

"That's why 80-plus organizations who stood up for MDLC and its clients - poor people with disabilities - are standing up for all groups who stand for unpopular causes," she added, referring to a letter signed by the groups opposing the requirements. The letter was sent to the Budget & Tax Committee last month.

John Nethercut, executive director of the MLSC-funded Public Justice Center, called the budget amendment "troubling."

"The overtly stated reason - the need for further information - is obviously overbroad," Nethercut said. "All MLSC grantees file detailed annual reports with the MLSC, we are all audited annually, and our federal 990 forms, which contain much of the information the committee appears to be seeking, is publicly available on the Web."

"If they need further information, they can request it," he added. "This death-shot amendment appears to be much more than a legitimate search for information."

The head of the state's largest provider of civil legal services to low-income people noted that the timing of the threatened budget cuts to MLSC and MDLC came at a particularly bad time. MLSC is already dealing with a huge drop in income from the Interest On Lawyer Trust Accounts, which has evaporated in the economic downturn. "But it's never a good time for something like this," said Maryland Legal Aid executive director Wilhelm H. Joseph Jr.

"While it's obvious that individual legislators have power and authority to leap over established mechanisms for addressing concerns regarding recipients of taxpayer money, I have deep concerns about whether the recent action regarding MDLC is the most efficient and sensible way to address legitimate concerns - if, in fact, they exist," Joseph continued. "There's been no public disclosure of a basis for the concern."

Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network in Washington, called the General Assembly's move "disturbing." The network represents organizations that, in turn, represent the interests of people with disabilities in 50 states and all the territories.

"I've spent my life making sure Congress doesn't put restrictions on protection and advocacy programs like MDLC," said Decker, who served as director of the Maryland program in the early 1980s. "We work very hard to make sure we can continue to do class-action lawsuits and represent prisoners - all the things that [federal Legal Services Corp.]-funded programs can't do. And we've been very successful at it."

Decker fears the financial-documentation requirement could start a trend.

"It's not happening in any other state," he said. "The whole purpose of funding the Maryland Legal Services Corp. grew out of the restrictions and cutbacks of the 1980s under President Reagan. So it undercuts the whole purpose of MLSC, which is to provide unfettered access to legal services for poor people."

The irony, of course, is that the downward spiral could start in Maryland, which boasts some of the best legal services programs in the country and judicial leadership that "gets it."

The community serving the legal needs of the poor needs to get the message out: Don't let it happen here.

Joe Surkiewicz is the director of communications at Maryland Legal Aid. His e-mail is jsurkiewicz@mdlab.org.