This Week's Payment Schedule
At this point, IDS has paid all fee applications that our Financial Services Office received from Clerks' Offices around the state through April 25, 2012. During the week of May 21, 2012, IDS will be issuing payments on Monday, May 21, Wednesday, May 23, and Friday, May 25. We expect those payments to cover all fee applications that our Financial Services Office received from Clerks' Offices around the state through April 26, 2012. The remaining payments this fiscal year will be small as we continue to identify funds from other parts of our budget (such as lapsed salary funds from public defender offices and the IDS Office) to cover the shortfall in funding for private assigned counsel and defense experts.

Please refer to the chart below for our best estimate of when we will pay the remaining fee applications from this fiscal year. Please note that our recoupment receipts between now and June 26 will determine how quickly we are able to complete paying the rest of the fee applications that we received during the month of April. Unfortunately, because we received an unusually high volume of fee applications on April 30, we are not sure that we will be able to complete paying all of those fee applications before the new fiscal year begins. Any fee applications that are not paid this fiscal year will be paid as soon as funds are released for the new fiscal year in early July. We will post detailed updates each week.

Date of Receipt	Anticipated Date of Payment
April 26, 2012	June 6, 2012
April 27, 2012	Early to mid-June 2012
April 30, 2012	Late June/early July 2012
May 1 to June 30, 2012	Early July

Funding Shortfall This Fiscal Year
As you know, IDS began the current fiscal year with more than $9 million in unpaid fee applications from last fiscal year. In addition, the General Assembly's appropriation to IDS for the current fiscal year was well below our projected needs. Thus, even with the dramatic reductions in the hourly rates in May 2011, there will be another significant shortfall this fiscal year.

While IDS' appropriation for private assigned counsel and defense experts has already been exhausted, we are continuing to transfer funds from other parts of our budget to cover some of the shortfall. Unfortunately, if we receive your fee applications in May or June, payment will be delayed until we receive next fiscal year's funding in July. During May and June, we will continue to pay some fee applications, in the order of receipt, as small amounts of recoupment receipts or other funds become available. However, we expect to have to defer between $12 and $14 million in unpaid fee awards for assigned counsel and defense experts until the new fiscal year begins. The sooner you submit any outstanding fee applications for payment, the better we will be able to project the actual shortfall. The IDS Commission and staff regret the hardship that the payment delays will cause for all of you, particularly on top of the hourly rate reductions.

General
Our staff has noticed a significant increase in the number of fee application received with missing information, including signatures, dates, and disposition information. Unfortunately, those fee applications will have to be returned for completion. Please be sure that your fee applications are complete before submitting them to a judge or clerk.

Please note that IDS is unable to research the status of individual payments unless more than 30 days have passed since the fee application was submitted to the judge. When funds are available, IDS processes fee applications in the order in which they are received, usually within two weeks of receipt by our Financial Services Office. However, there is often a several week delay between the disposition of a case and receipt of the fee application by IDS Financial Services. Please note that the processing staff are not authorized to expedite payment on individual fee applications.

Thank you for your patience and support during these continued difficult budget times.