You might have thought, like we did that the entire 310 million dollars taken out of the construction budget would be properly visited only upon the AOC. While most of us were sleeping however, the AOC asked for and was given the right to apportion the 310 million dollars in cuts upon the trial courts!
This sounds like business as usual for the AOC who will be moving to protect its entire workforce while more layoffs happen in the trial courts.
While most of us believed deconstruction of the AOC under this bill was inevitable, this is not the case. Every trial court, every judge, every court employee has something to additionally be angry about for while we expect all courts will have to resort to furloughs and layoffs, the AOC will be protecting it’s own workforce and continuing it’s unrestrained growth.
The AOC and the Judicial Council did a great disservice to the rest of the judicial branch last night for now they will target courtrooms just like they have in the past to send a message to Sacramento. Pathetic.
NOTE: We’re trying to verify the story we’re reading in courthouse news as it is not crystal clear what lobbying was done to re-apportion what cuts. If these cuts are not visited entirely upon OCCM then justice has been sold down the river by the AOC.
Sam
June 29, 2011
I’m not surprised by this, unfortunately. Trial courts will suffer unprecedented layoffs and pretty Tani could care less. She spouts access to justice but it is her fault alone for not doing the right thing by closing computer projects. She is a sham. Nothing will ever change, sadly.
Judicial Council Watcher
June 29, 2011
Someone correct us if we’re wrong but it seems to us that such unprecedented budget cuts apportioned to the trial courts would result in closure of some courthouses for nearly two weeks a month or result in judges going to work without staff.
That is breathtaking. We hope that others will join us in insisting that Tani Cantil-Sakauye step down as the top administrator of the branch and as Chief Justice. The damage she has caused can never be construed as leadership.
sharonkramer
June 29, 2011
If we can function with trial courts being closed because of lack of funds, then why do we need to use scare funds to build more courts?
Judicial Council Watcher
June 29, 2011
We’re trying to verify the story we’re reading in courthouse news as it is not crystal clear what lobbying was done to re-apportion what cuts. If these cuts are not visited entirely upon OCCM then justice has been sold down the river by the AOC.
“The budget, which Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) called “the most austere fiscal blueprint that California has seen in more than a generation,” left in a $150 million budget cut to the judicial branch, which faces an additional $200 million in cuts made earlier this year. The branch will also have to do without $310 million in debt service money for construction bonds, under the new budget bill.
The Judicial Council will have the discretion to apportion the cut after representatives lobbied the Legislature, a source said. But trial judges are skeptical of who really controls the power of the purse within the branch, saying it actually rests with the Administrative Office of the Courts, the bureaucracy established to carry out council policy.”
Michael Paul
June 29, 2011
I don’t think that the AOC’s lobbyists are that good. My interpretation is different than yours. Nonetheless, Yen has a call into Steinberg’s office as well to verify the specifics of the 310 mil.
I also think that Tani needs to STEP DOWN either way.
Judicial Council Watcher
June 29, 2011
If we’re wrong we have the courage to admit it and the title will change to “We were so wrong on this”
Michael Paul
June 29, 2011
Meanwhile I’m giving you one star (very poor) for jumping the gun. tsk, tsk.
sharonkramer
June 29, 2011
And I will give you 5 stars for acknowledging possible error and moving quickly to correct. That is a sign of true integrity. Everyone makes mistakes. The problems stem from when they don’t move to correct them while trying to conceal that error was made. The demise of our judicial system is largely the result of trying to cover up errors, not the errors themselves. We are all witnessing what slippery slope that is. Good for you, JCW, for moving quickly when you think you may have made an error.
JusticeCalifornia
June 29, 2011
JCW, far better to be wrong than right on this one.
Michael Paul
June 29, 2011
I’m glad you’re wrong. Diverting construction to DGS and not cuts in trial court funding is the goal.
Now if we can all get the AOC to admit that CCMS is a boondoggle they can’t afford and they were wrong we will be getting somewhere. Then you can subtract another 3 billion from “California’s 9 billion dollar reality check”
sharonkramer
June 29, 2011
I’m confused. So what did happen with the budget for the judicial branch? Did any last minute adjustments get made?
Judicial Council Watcher
June 29, 2011
660 million in cuts. No last minute adjustments, 350 million consists of a january 200 mil reduction and a June 150 mil reduction. 310 million has been taken from OCCM’s projects.
The new 150 million is to be allocated among the judicial branch. The January 200 mil has already been allocated, though at last glance, disproportionately upon the trial courts and not the AOC.
The 310 mil goes against AOC projects only delays new construction and keeps plenty of construction in the pipeline to keep all AOC employees busy.
sharonkramer
June 29, 2011
So, all up, the AOC got approximately a +/- $400M budget cut this year?
Judicial Council Watcher
June 29, 2011
Based on disproportionate allocations to the trial courts, substantially less. Maybe… 330 mil? The ACJ did an analysis on the first 200 mil and found that those were disproportionately visited upon the trial courts. As to if this was addressed and corrected, we’ve received no word thus far.
JusticeCalifornia
June 29, 2011
660 mil, as I understand it?
You cannot say that minimimi wasn’t on notice, warned, and given a chance to clean up top leadership’s act.
Her reaction? She surrounded herself with ethically compromised sycophants, stomped her little foot, threw a couple of disingenuous faux-feminist hissy fits, smacked around the legislature and concerned others, and threatened that the trial courts and public will pay.
Our blackjack dealer /cocktail waitress turned cj has defiantly spit into the wind, “on behalf of” [at the expense of] the branch, and a gale force wind that is.
Simply put, thus far she is taking down the branch at warp speed.
I do believe the question now is– can she recover? Or should she resign?
Judicial Council Watcher
June 29, 2011
Without some major changes, there is alleged to be a well funded recall campaign in her immediate future. Pledges have already reached into the low six figures. While we believe it is not too late yet, she needs to take some decisive action, stop flapping her lips and stomping her little foot or she will indeed be California’s shortest serving chief justice.
660 million total – about half coming from the AOC and their construction boondoggles.
Wendy Darling
June 29, 2011
The State Legislature gave the Chief Justice six months to excercise some “c0-equal” leadership as the elected chief representative of a “co-equal branch” of State government. Instead, in the wake of the BSA audit report documenting and identifying gross mismanagement and malfeasance of the AOC, she supported, endorsed, and praised Bill Vickrey and chastised the State legislature for calling for Vickrey’s termination, formed some to new committees to oversee other committees, sent out some surveys, and whined about the judicial branch being cut, among other things.
Having failed to actually act to do anything meaningful, substantitive, and responsbible to address any of the serious problems the judicial branch is drowing in, the State legislature has now done it for her, and the branch, in the one way they have the absolute right, obligation, and responsibility over – the judicial branch budget.
Just follow the money. Because you can’t spend what you don’t have. And not even the AOC, the Judicial Council, and the Office of the Chief Justice can deny or avoid this simple truth.
And thank heavens for, and long live, the ACJ – the only real leadership at this point of the California judical branch.
Judicial Council Watcher
June 29, 2011
Damn. Who would have ever believed us admitting we were wrong would garner more reads in one day than any other post we ever made?
Hopefully you are all sending this to JC/AOC leadership as a hint as to what THEY should be doing.
Wendy Darling
June 29, 2011
Take it as a sign that telling the truth – in all things, and in all ways — still matters to some people, especially when it comes to the California judicial branch.
Long live JCW.
Long live the ACJ.
And long live the First Amendment.
sharonkramer
June 30, 2011
Perhaps your, “Eating our words – ‘We were so wrong on this” post garnered many readers because it is such a foreign concept to some that anyone would actually use those nine little words. Think how much intergrity would be reinstilled in our judicial branch if Tani and the JC could learn to use them.
Sam
June 29, 2011
Glad to see the error realized and corrected. Shows integrity. Pretty Tani will make the trial courts take the brunt of the additional 150M cuts, of course. If she shut down SRO and SF Ccms units, contracts, and managers she would save the trial courts “access to justice” by 120+ million. This includes getting rid of all the incompetent people who have been at the AOC far too long. But she won’t and courts will lose hundreds, excuse me, 1000+ court employees instead. I can only pray I’m wrong.
JusticeCalifornia
June 30, 2011
The cj needs to admit she is wrong, and she needs to clean house. I don’t know how many ways she needs to hear it. If instead she:
Blindly presses forward on CCMS and expensive court construction (to the extent she can with her tightened pursestrings); defiantly keeps Huffman in the catbird’s seat, “overseeing” all branch “oversight” efforts; defiantly keeps Turner on CCMS committees and in charge of planting CEOs in trial courts; defiantly keeps Halpin “temporarily” assigned for 17.5 years and counting, as a flagship example of the JC’s “temporary” assigned judges program; continues to block access to important information requested from the branch by a concerned public, and branch members. . . . .let’s see how that all works out for her. . .and the branch. I do not think it will be “pretty”. I think it is pretty damn clear to everyone that the branch is being told to clean up its act, or face the music.