On July 22nd, we all heard that the Judicial Council voted and passed a one year pause to CCMS. What people probably did not notice is that the AOC, via the trial court budget working group, submitted multiple line-items of CCMS related funding that was all recommended and passed, continuously funding CCMS activity at about 652K per week. In that same recommendation, the AOC sought and was granted the ability of moving the funding around and re-appropriate funding granted as the AOC felt necessary.
Yes, it is time to bring back Johnny Lang to describe what’s really going on.
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By submitting multiple requests for different aspects of CCMS funding and justifying these multiple requests separately,(see this link- special funds allocations for fiscal year 2011-2012) the AOC managed to convince the trial court budget working group (TCBWG) and the judicial council to fully fund AOC’s CCMS objectives. Describing the whole matter as a “pause” assured that no legislative action would be pushed forth to kill the program because by the time people figured out there wasn’t any pause, there would be days left on this years’ legislative schedule in which to act.
All the pause did was tie the legislatures hands and silence some – but not most – critics. After all, it appeared by any normally accepted definition of a pause that it was a pause. Had all of the individual budget allocations of special funds not been made (totaling some 34 million dollars – continuously funding the CCMS program at a rate of 652K per week…) then there might have been a pause. However, by fully funding every line item recommendation, the JC fully funded the program until FY 2012-2013 with the intent on asking the legislature for 74.5 million next year.
Quote from Mark Moore in the last Judicial Council meeting:
“It was originally referred to as the one-year pause – we’re now relabeling it. It’s not necessarily a one-year pause,”
That makes sense give that the TCBWG and the JC fully funded the program.
Why pause if the JC fully funded the program?
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In other news, Judge Katherine Feinstein describes the AOC’s funding proposal as “ineffective posturing” that won’t stop any layoffs.
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More from Maria Dizneo of Courthouse News – SF Superior Rejects Bailout Offer, IT Project Continues in Full Swing
Judicial Council Watcher 
JusticeCalifornia
August 30, 2011
The CJ/JC/AOC clearly have no integrity or respect for anyone’s opinion other than their own. They simply cannot tell the truth about CCMS. This has been going on for years, as far as I can tell. The BSA report, and the assembly reports, and the CJA, and the ACJ, all call out top leadership about this, but frankly, my dear, top leadership just doesn’t give a damn.
JusticeCalifornia did an analysis (previously posted on JCW) of the JC/AOC “spin” on the June 2005 Praxis report about trial court and JC/AOC objectives and the public’s opinion of the branch — as well as the subsequent trust and confidence “focus groups” and reports. The AOC spinmeisters flat out manipulated the focus groups and lied about the results of the JC trust and confidence studies in an attempt to clean up the bad statistics.
Are any of us really surprised that there is no CCMS “pause”? Or that construction/maintenance costs remain out of this world? Or that top leadership won’t give any information to anyone about their special consultants and outside contractors etc.? No.
The real surprise is as stated in my last post. The three branches of government are allowing this trashy band of liars led by a gambling barmaid to take down the branch at the expense of the public. The fix is actually rather simple, isn’t it? Trial and appellate court judges need to clean their own house. They can effectively neutralize the arrogant gambling barmaid and her tiny band of giggling JC thieves by banding together, telling the legislature that this handful of liars does not speak for the branch, and asking for appropriate legislation.
Until the JUDGES step forward en masse and divorce themselves from their spendthrift leadership and unethical branch mates, why on earth would the legislature believe the branch needs more money, or trust the branch with more money?
The judges in this state need to clean their own house.
Michael Paul
August 30, 2011
Two words:
Unfathomable hubris.
You’re always left wondering what just happened….. and why.
unionman575
August 30, 2011
I expected a CCMS back fil. I also expected the theft of more trial court operating funds for both CCMS and other pet projects. This is the JC/AOC way. They are all a buncn of liars and thieves.
Delilah
August 30, 2011
This is the same kind of “pause” that RonO said would be done with courthouse construction. He said each construction project would be “paused” after completion of its current phase, be it “Complex land acquisition, architectural design, construction,” etc. Yeah, right! Just like CCMS. It is all a load of crap/big fat lie. But nobody will be concerned enough to fight hard enough to prove it, cuz the other two branches of govt are either afraid, subservient, hamstrung, neutered, unwilling, or complicit, and the AOC has perfected the art of double-speak, obfuscating the truth, and has demonstrated its master talent for squashing all opposing forces.
You can bet your life that all the courthouse construction projects in the pipeline are going full steam ahead, just like the CCMS project, no matter what the AOC says. Black is white, up is down. All the AOC has to do is say something is true, cuz nobody’s gonna be able to get to the truth. They know how to make sure of that. Judge McCormick’s request? It’s already forgotten about like yesterday’s news. Who’s gonna follow up on it? Bill Vickrey? Ron Overholt? The Chief Justice? The news media? Only us. And as much as I relish the outlet that JCW provides, as the days go by, I feel more and more that we are spitting into the wind.
Wendy Darling
August 30, 2011
Or, more accurately, screaming into a hurricane.
Long live the ACJ.
Chuck Horan
September 1, 2011
It is also the same sort of “pause” that the AOC used to supposedly halt hiring a little over a year ago. First they declared a hiring freeze, and then it turned out they had continued to hire full time employees. Mr. Vickrey then declared that it had been a “soft” freeze, but immediately instituted a “hard” freeze. Of course, they hired more employees during this freeze as well. When confronted with that fact, they simply shrugged.
They are utterly facile in their use of language. A cessation of work on CCMS should have, of course, meant just that. They do what they want, and when caught obfuscate, and when that fails, they shrug and dare anyone to do anything about it.
Here, I assume what they’ve done is just declare development completed, so there is no need for a pause in development. Simple, see? Too bad the AOC and council don’t run the AMA–they could just declare that they had cured cancer and “move on”. Of course, the deaths would continue, but now they would be due to some other cause, because, by definition, cancer ceased to exist.
sharonkramer
September 1, 2011
Judge Horan,
Your comparison to the results of conflicts of interest (COI) by the AOC/JC to that of results of COI in the AMA is truer than you probably know. The AMA was called before US Congress last year for allowing a small band of physicians with financial interest in the outcome to write insurer friendly standards in their 6th Edition Guide for physicians. Its not based on current accepted science. They just ignore the well evidenced objections and Congress.
Does this sound like a familiar tune?
“An additional objection made was that the Guides were in conflict with both Iowa statutory and case law. The Commissioner stated, “With all due respect to Dr. Brigham, the Iowa Workers’ Compensation system will evolve and improve when it is decided by the citizens of Iowa that it will evolve and improve. The system will not evolve at the whim or business opportunity of either one physician, one medical association, or a small consensus of the two.”
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/2010/11/iowa-workers-compensation-commissioner.html