Here’s the AOC’s position tallies by groups and Judicial Council Watcher’s recommendations
Attorneys Group (includes supervising & managing, asst. director & director) 78 – 8% of the workforce serves as AOC attorneys
Accountants Group (includes accountants, accounting techs, budget analysts, supervising & managing, asst director & director) 129 – 13% of the workforce is related to accounting.
Managers & Supervisors Group (managers by any other name and includes project managers, supervisors, directors and assistant directors) 197 – 20% of the workforce is management related and is the highest paid group.
Admins Group (Secretaries, admin coordinators, services analysts, clerks and support personnel for groups, admin supervisors by any other name) 205 – 21% of the workforce is management support related
Ratio of management to workers: 2.7 workers to 1 manager (management support personnel are excluded because they are an extension of their management) A healthy ratio of management to employees (excluding management support personnel) is 9 workers to 1 manager.
There is lots of room for improvement.
A full half (50%) of the AOC mid-level management group should be eliminated/ laid off starting with assistant directors, then senior managers, then managers since it is the supervisors that manage employees and projects. Everyone above supervisor manages other managers. Approximate AOC savings: 30 million+ a year.
A full half (50%) of the accounting group could afford to disappear and better share the workload as it is alleged that many have little to no tasking It’s also alleged that they maintain siloed accounting codes because once upon a time an accountant discovered that a vendor was being paid twice over and over again being billed to two different accounting codes. We want to catch this kind of impropriety, not bury it and fire those who point it out.
2/3rds + of AOC’s bad advice/send it out legal department should be eliminated. Approximate AOC savings: 10 million + a year.
The remaining half of management should take a 10% pay cut as they are overpaid.
There’s an enduring belief that AOC personnel, some of the highest paid people in state government got raises last year to ensure they wouldn’t think of going anywhere else and spilling the beans on AOC’s operations. The raises were, in effect, buying silence. It is for similar reasons that there is an enduring belief that virtually no layoffs will occur in the heavily laden management group because loose lips sink ships. It would also be the same reason that Tonto would be chosen over better qualified, more respected outsider to replace Bill Vickrey.
A management ratio of 2.7 to 1 is however, inexcusable but this is how the 22 senior managers, 14 assistant directors and 15 directors manipulated themselves into 160+K salary ranges.
Judicial Council Watcher 
JusticeCalifornia
July 11, 2011
I cannot imagine that the AOC lawyers, accountants, managers and supervisors who got the branch into this raging mess would be worth much in the public sector at this point.
JCW, the other great place to cut, of course, is the gigantic AOC PR department. That is completely non-essential.
As for Tonto. . . .as I previously said, it is blatantly, patently, spectacularly stupid, irresponsible and suspect to replace a failed administrator with his failed next-in-command.
Judicial Council Watcher
July 11, 2011
Since Pravda is spread across many divisions, this figure will take a bit to compile and verify. Maybe this can be completed by tomorrow morning but we’re in agreement – The PR machine must also be – at least partly- dismantled.
Michael Paul
July 11, 2011
Agreed on the downsizing – I know these people so I can assist in identifying those positions that play a part. in pravda.
Wendy Darling
July 11, 2011
Published today, Monday, July 11, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
OC Judge Survey Delivers Broadside to Top Brass of California Courts
By MARIA DINZEO
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/07/11/38048.htm
Long live the ACJ.
______________________________________________________________________________
JusticeCalifornia
July 11, 2011
Excellent article.
L. A. Observer
July 11, 2011
This is refreshing. For years the O.C. court and its judicial leadership has been seen as being attached to the AOC. Their PJ’s and the former Executive Officer were out on point to snuff any criticism by any other court. After all, the were the pioneers for CCMS and therefore implicitly knew how responsible the AOC must be in its fiscal affairs. They would tell one and all, “the AOC is here to help.”
Looks like it took time, but it is nice to know the judges have awakened and see the AOC the same as do many other courts. The AOC’s help will destroy us all.
Wendy Darling
July 11, 2011
The California courts need the AOC’s “help” about as much as the rest of us need financial advice from Bernie Madoff.
Long live the ACJ.
antonatrail
July 11, 2011
The Orange county judges get it! Right on, Orange! I could hear violins playing as I read their remarks as reported by Maria Dinzeo. At long last the AOC is being exposed for exactly what it is. The very end of the article says it all. Thank you all who had anything to do with this great, truth-revealing article!
Long live Wendy Darling and the ACJ!
Michael Paul
July 11, 2011
My, my, my – there sure are a lot of shrill and uninformed out there. >>>>rolls eyes<<<<
They're all saying the same thing too.
Jon Wintermeyer
July 11, 2011
We’ve always known the AOC was top heavy, but those numbers are staggering, the salaries so inflated for minions wearing blinders while drinking Kool-aid , the CJ’s multiple study committees are all stacked with those bought and paid for and the accomplishments are truthfully non-existant.
I too applaud Orange County Court’s for admitting the AOC is out of control and corrective action is required.
Now let’s get the tar and feathers ready to show Bill Vickery how he should be ridden out of office on a RAIL, carried by the CA Taxpayers.
Wendy Darling
July 11, 2011
And please take Ron Overholt with him.
sharonkramer
July 11, 2011
The Recorder,
1st article:
On Heels of Firings, Dunn Pledges Bar Will Eliminate Discipline Backlog by Year’s End
by Kate Moser
State Bar Executive Director Joseph Dunn won’t say why he ordered a bloodletting in his middle management team last week. But the day after Dunn had his deputy, Robert Hawley, fire four veteran… .
2nd article:
In Deep Hole, S.F. Court Officials See No Easy Way Out
by Cynthia Foster
“..Labor representatives say a life preserver from the state Administrative Office of the Courts is San Francisco’s only hope of avoiding layoffs of 40 percent of court employees.
..But court officials see little chance of such a rescue, and say they will send layoff notices July 15 and move forward with plans to close half of the city’s courtrooms.
…Judge Curtis Karnow is trying to raise awareness of the cuts by going on radio talk shows and penning op-ed pieces. …”Lawyers who care will hopefully start waking up,” he said. “Lawyers need courtrooms.”
..She’s getting help on that front from the Alliance of California Judges, which wants the AOC to cut its own budget and divert funds from the troubled Court Case Management System to strained trial courts.
..Despite the outcry from Karnow and others, court CFO Sue Wong said she doesn’t believe there will be any subsidies from the AOC, let alone enough to make a significant dent in the gap….
…”The best scenario will come if the AOC” will redirect money to struggling counties, said Service Employees International Union chapter President Adrienne Williams. SEIU represents more than half of the court employees.”
SF Whistle
July 11, 2011
Is this “fuzzy-math”….?
Trial Courts face a 9% budget reduction—-San Francisco responds with a 40% cut in staff?
SEIU Chapter President is quoted:
“The best scenario will come if the AOC” will redirect money to struggling counties…”
—–come on….how about some outrage???—the SEIU should be telling the AOC to cut-the-crap….the cuts should come out of the bloated AOC….immediately halt on stupid CCMS…OR ELSE the SEIU will launch the recall….
If I were a dues paying SEIU member I would feel under-represented by a President expressing wishful thinking and sending valentines to RB2—-get a spine—
The fools at the AOC still work for us —despite the fact that they…in their arrogance inform us daily that there is no such thing as accountability….
One Who Knows
July 11, 2011
SF – just because you read a quote by someone it doesn’t mean that SEIU hasn’t done exactly what you suggest. But, guess what? The AOC listens to no one. And just because we are outraged it doesn’t mean that the average citizen who knows nothing about the waste, fraud and abuse in the judiciary is outraged and cares two wits about taking the time to sign a recall petition. The average Californian during the Rose Bird era was far more informed and outraged about what was happening then. The current electorate will want to give the current chief justice an opportunity to clean house and they won’t know what is happening in the judiciary unless they read this blog or unless someone spends millions of dollars to educate the average citizen. And where will those millions come from to buy tv time and to do direct mail? So please don’t misplace your frustration towards SEIU or the SF Chapter president who happens to be a court employee and who happens to be as fed up as you but didn’t issue a vitriolic enough of a quote.
Wendy Darling
July 11, 2011
Published late today, Monday, July 11, from The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl Miller:
AOC Recommends Trial Courts Cut Budget 9% this year, 15% in 2012
Cheryl Miller
http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202500274825&AOC_Recommends_Trial_Courts_Cut_Budget_9_this_year_15_in_2012&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1
Long live the ACJ.
Judicial Council Watcher
July 11, 2011
More self-dealing on behalf of the AOC. They lay out options and align themselves with cuts to the supreme and appellate courts in their options.
“Choose if we should be decimated with the supreme and courts of appeal or a fairer cut of trial courts taking the hit while preserving AOC manpower of 120% of authorized strength”
Hopefully, the trial courts and the ACJ will present a few other options to the trial court budget working group rather than the preserve the status quo being presented by the AOC.
If I were sitting on this committee “None of the Above” comes to mind.
sharonkramer
July 11, 2011
“The budget recommendations have angered members of the Alliance of California Judges, who say the branch administration should take a bigger percentage hit than the trial courts……The Judicial Council’s Trial Court Budget Working Group will consider the recommendations in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday. The full Judicial Council is scheduled to make final budget decisions on July 22.”
Was it ever determined who the members of the Judicial Council’s Trial Court Budget Working Group are?
Wendy Darling
July 11, 2011
Published this evening, Monday, July 11, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Report Recommends Controversial Sweeping Cuts Across Judiciary
By MARIA DINZEO
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/07/11/38053.htm
Dinzeo’s article includes a link to the acutal AOC “report” to the Trial Court Budget Working Group.
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
July 11, 2011
And FYI, Dinzeo’s above article also includes a link to the roster for “The Trial Court Budget Working Group”, headed by . . . Stephen Nash.
Long live the ACJ.
sharonkramer
July 11, 2011
Looks like Nash and a few others are not voting members, right?
Roster of the Work Group:
Click to access 2011%20TCBWG%20Roster%20-%2072011.pdf
sharonkramer
July 11, 2011
They are seeking to take $10M from planned expenditures and divert it to the CCMS project? And the technology/infrastructure budget is increasing by $51M? What is the other $41M in increase for? I must not be reading this correctly.
“According to the figures provided by the bureaucracy, the AOC proposes a $10 million transfer from “planned expenditures” for a controversial $1.9 billion IT project called the Court Case Management System. This year’s proposed state budget for the judicial branch shows a $51 million increase for statewide administrative and technology infrastructure, from which money for CCMS is drawn, up from $96 million in fiscal year 2010-2011 to $147 million this year. No other budget items saw such an increase.”
unionman575
July 11, 2011
It’s time to clean house now at the AOC and unload at least 1/2 of the management now.
SF Whistle
July 12, 2011
One Who Knows—-
You tell me that the average citizen wants to give the CJ (RB2)…..”an opportunity to clean house….”
Sorry….I’m not buying it….There is not one thing in any action undertaken by RB2 that suggests she has any inclination to do so. Perhaps you can help me out in my own limited understanding and answer this question…
Who would accept a position at the AOC…or even JC knowing the freaking mess that exists? Gee…let’s jump on the train that we know is destined to crash….
You write that the electorate was more informed in the RB era and you seem to imply that no one would sign on to a recall / reform initiative…? I suggest you stand outside a court house. You will find many well-informed outraged litigants, employees, attorneys etc…
Yes….a reform initiative would require a bit more education than the deat penalty issue that was RB’s undoing…but you do not have to educate the California electorate about what a mess the entire State is in—and how we can’t tax our way out of it—The electorate recognizes corruption and bungled management—More money for CCMS as we turn out the lights in court rooms…
HOW LONG DOES THE SEIU INTEND TO WAIT?—-WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?
No one is looking for vitriol…..How about ACTION? RB2 has no intention to “clean house”….she intends to hunker down in her bunker and see if she can weather the storm…
Judicial Council Watcher
July 12, 2011
JCW has been the recipient of a few statewide SEIU messages between high-level SEIU persons. They have nothing to act upon because they don’t yet know what the budget cut proposal will be coming out of tomorrow’s meeting. One thing is certain – they too believe the AOC should absorb the majority of budget cuts. While you don’t see their activism, all chapters of the SEIU are trying to work together to ensure the AOC takes the cuts and not the trial courts.
nikkislim
July 12, 2011
Until the public (taxpayers) know what’s going on @ 455 Golden Gate Ave, SF, CA, the thivery at the AOC will continue. I suggest that the unions, employees and the judges start a media campaign with every news station and newspaper group in the state start reporting what’s going on. Until then, the people running the AOC will continue doing what they are doing.
As anyone working for the trial courts know, before the AOC suckered the TC’s into believing that the could manage the TC’s much better than the were doing themselves, the TC’s NEVER, repeat NEVER had problems with funding. It wasn’t until they (AOC) took over and they were given control over who got what and when, did our troubles start.
The new JC better do what is right and dismantle the wasteful CCMS project, get rid of all of the so called managers that they DON’T need, especially that slimy pig Ron Overholt, and redirect every dime earmarked for CCMS to the TC’s! She better look @ the whole picture, this state, and realize and understand that when the s*** hits the fan, and it will, she will be the one blamed! No one else. Again, get the news media involved. Have the news media go talk to the powers that be @ the AOC and have them answer the questions they really don’t want askedd or have to answer. Why has and continues to be so much of taxpayers money be wasted on a program, ten plus years, that clearly does not work? Put the spot light on them. Put pressure on them.
If not, justice in this state as we know it will no longer exist.
On a final note, I do hope and pray that the judges who are fighting to regain control of the courts are successful.
PS: JC Tani, You MUST do the right thing. End CCMS and cut the excess waste at the AOC!
sharonkramer
July 12, 2011
It concerns me, too, that the public will never get it in this era of tweets, texts, and massive PR budgets. Its a given that the public will never understand what the ACJ/court employees understand of what is really occurring…unless you can get the message down to where it will fit in a tweet. A good example of what the public doesn’t get if the dots are not connected for them is Joe the Plumber from Ohio. He endorsed Ohio manufacturering jobs being outsourced to China, even while watching the blue collar unemployment rate grow drastically in the state. The only message Joe heard was that the Dems and big government wanted to give his hard earned tax dollars to slackers on the dole of social services.
This is how I got the feds to change scientific policy over the mold issue. I kept repeating the following over and over and over again until the gravity of matter sunk in with each new example of the impact of the problem: “You can’t take a rat study, add some math and profess to prove thousands of sick US citizens are liars our to scam insurers. Yet, that’s exactly what ACOEM & the US Chamber did.”
You have to clearly connect who is causing the problem, for what purpose and how this issue adversely impacts the public — in a minimal number of buzz words.
JusticeCalifornia
July 12, 2011
I want to interject here–here is where historic trial court bad apples take down the whole branch.
We know Kim Turner signed off on Marin’s prior CEO’s inappropriate expenditures, and looked the other way as he handed $650,000 in court IT contracts to his live-in girlfriend. We know Kim has spent an amazing $2 million- $2.5 million PER YEAR on a very sad Marin court IT system, far more than other counties Marin’s size, when a brand new system could apparently be had for around $700,000, and maintained for what, $100,000 per year? Turner got rid of loyal personnel who didn’t like her tainted history or management style some years back, and reportedly replaced them with her unqualified buddies who earn six figures. And the court itself has become known as a full-service employment agency for the law firm run by two partners who are married to Marin bench officers, and who run and contribute to election campaigns. Litigants have been complaining for two decades about rampant corruption, retaliation and cronyism on the bench. Yet, Marin’s known ethical and financial human skunks like Turner, Duryee and now Adams have been coddled and protected and embraced and invited into top leadership positions by Ron George and now Sakauye. Indeed, corrupt policies have been concocted at the top, and encouraged to trickle down– many of us have witnessed it. Top leadership and other branch members have turned a blind eye to (or actually encouraged and defended ) misconduct of administrators and judges, at the expense of the public and notwithstanding documented pain and injustices suffered by employees and litigants. The stench of corruption has become impossible to ignore, permeates the entire branch, and inspires repugnance and revolt, not respect or sympathy.
If the branch is to survive, Sakauye needs to stop sleeping with the skunks, and clean house. How many ways does she need to hear that? But in fairness, historically tainted trial courts must do the same.
SF Whistle
July 12, 2011
FASCINATING—-
EVERYONE KEEPS RECITING THAT CJ (RB2) “needs to clean house”—–must “do the right thing”…..and all manner and form of WISHFUL THINKING—
Get over it—-RB2 is not going to do anything of the sort—Santa Claus is not going to deliver a new democratized JC…..the tooth fairy is not going to dismantle the AOC…..the Easter Bunny is not going to restore diverted funds from the ridiculous bloated CCMS budget….There will be no purge at the AOC—-
The CJ does not believe that any of these things are necessary…essential or helpful…
The CJ provides all insight required in her recent comments about 1208 being an insult to the independence of HER branch—-The CJ is arrogant and insular—-she will not change anything until forced to—-The CJ does not need more time—greater opportunity to do all the things that kind-hearted persons HOPE she will do with the benefit of time—
The CJ needs a Rose Bird Retirement party……
courtflea
July 12, 2011
First of all, I concur with LA Observer. It is about time the Judges of OC spoke the truth. I hope others follow their example and that of the ACJ.
I can’t help also to understand the frustration of SF Whistle. However, as Judge Horan has stated here more than once (and I am paraphrasing here), we have come a long way really fast and it takes time to turn the battleship. But most of us realize, even after all of this hard work, the media still does not really care much and the public is still not getting it. If you read the SACTO BEE today, there is an article about the long lines at the SACTO family court facility. Until it hits the public and court employees hard, that is when they, the public and the unions will start screaming and effectuate the cause.
One thing to remember is that Rose Bird was ousted on a hot button issue: the death penalty. Until the public, et al get with it, SFW is right, most folks won’t give a damn about what is happening at the AOC. We need to keep workin it.
The budget working group? pleeze. you know my feelings bout JC committees, working groups, etc. Judges and CEOs need to get up in arms and challenge the AOC about the proposed cuts. Man up.
unionman575
July 12, 2011
It’s time to swing for the fences and recall the CJ.