Dear Members and Others:
Yesterday the AOC sent to members of the judiciary, and apparently certain media outlets, a document entitled: “Fact Check: Correcting the False Claims Behind AB 1208.” We are concerned that that the Judiciary not accuse unidentified Assembly members of making “false claims on the Assembly floor.”
Within hours of this missive, Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, who spoke in favor of AB 1208, issued a detailed rebuttal and we include a link to that response. We also include a very brief comment concerning other areas in the “Fact Check” document that may have been better worded.
The Alliance believes it is not in the best interests of the judiciary to have the Judicial Council and the AOC engaging in personal attacks on the Legislature. We understand their disappointment in the outcome of the Assembly vote and, in particular, the mere 24 “no” votes that were obtained after months of their expensive and time consuming lobbying. Nevertheless, it is incumbent on all of us to comport ourselves in a dignified manner and to show respect for the Legislative branch of government. In addition, we question the wisdom of a strategy that impugns the integrity of members of the legislature while at the same time asking those same members to restore funding to the branch.
Here are just a few of the other assertions of “false claims” in the AOC’s “Fact Check” document, and a more complete detailing of the facts on which those assertions were likely based, many of which come from the AOC’s own documents and reports:
Claim at Assembly Hearing: “$8,000 was spent on gum removal at the Sacramento Courthouse.”
AOC’s Response: “The six-day project, which was requested by the Sacramento Superior Court and had the court’s involvement and approval, involved pressure-washing and steam-cleaning of more than an acre of walkways and plaza to remove gum, feces, urine, and dirt in preparation for treating a slick walking area to remove slip and fall hazards.”
Reality: Presiding Judge Steve White of the Sacramento Superior Court testified before the Assembly Accountability Oversight Committee in August, 2010, that the judges of his court did not approve of $8,000 for gum removal. Mr. Vickrey and Mr. Overholt attended and testified at this hearing. It is possible that they did not hear Judge White’s testimony. When questioned by legislators, the AOC did report that the clean up required special processing as the concrete surrounding the courthouse not only had affixed gum but also feces. Presiding Judge White has reported that he disputes the feces claim made by the AOC in justifying the expenditure. Moreover, if the AOC wants to justify the expense by referring to the entire project to clean walkways and the plaza at the Gordon Schraber Courthouse,their records reflect that the total for the two-phase project was in fact more than $18,000.
Claim at Assembly Hearing: “CCMS is a $1.9 billion computer system that doesn’t work.”
AOC’s Response: “CCMS is finished and works. It took nine years to refine and develop at a cost of $315.5 million.”
Reality: CCMS is not finished. The AOC has redefined CCMS development by excluding necessary development aspects which were previously considered development, now calling them deployment. By virtue of semantics and changing definitions, the AOC now reports completion, though the AOC is still engaged with contractors in development projects. Additionally, the AOC’s own report to the Legislature in May of 2011 estimated a total cost of CCMS program expenditures through fiscal year 2012-2013 at $759,468,347 (see their Attachment 1A at page 31 of the report). The State Auditor testified before the Legislature on February 15, 2011, following the release of her CCMS audit. During her testimony, she stated “poor cost estimates and uncertain funding have plagued the system.” When asked her opinion as to potential costs, she testified that the price tag could climb as high as $3 billion. (http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/02/15/34212.htm).
Further AOC Response: “Its value as a branch asset has been outlined in the Grant Thornton Cost Benefit Analysis, versions of CCMS are currently being used in seven trial courts on a daily basis, and the award-winning California Courts Protective Order Registry (CCPOR) was created out of CCMS. This 21st Century Courts product will allow Californians to work online rather than wait in line.”
Reality: The Grant Thornton Analysis was based on assumptions that are already outdated. The CCPOR was not “created out of CCMS,” but rather was the work of AOC employees who developed the core product. Many county courts which do not use CCMS are successfully implementing CCPOR, which is in fact a separate product that can be interfaced with CCMS, but was not “created out of CCMS.”
Further Reality: The CCMS project is not nearly complete and it has been plagued by a lack of adequate planning and cost controls, failure to develop accurate cost estimates and failure to secure adequate funding for statewide deployment of the system, thereby diminishing its value. All of these problems have been detailed by the state auditor in a report dated February 2011. The executive summary of the report summarizes the failings of this poorly managed project.
Conclusion: AB 1208 addresses a core problem with the current trial court funding model. Trial court judges are independent constitutional officers charged with the duty to deliver adjudicative services to their citizens within their jurisdictional boundaries.
Current law does not require that the Judicial Council fully deliver all of the money which the Legislature has appropriated to the trial courts. AB 1208 amends current law to require the Judicial Council or its designee to allocate 100 percent of the funds appropriated for trial court operations by the Legislature, according to each court’s share of statewide operational funding.
The time has come to stop fighting against AB 1208, and to start talking about how to implement its core principles through agreed statutory changes. We should be working together in the branch to find permanent and lasting solutions to the fiscal crisis in our trial courts. AB 1208 is an essential first step.
Now is the time for judges of the Judicial Council to graciously accept criticism and responsibility for a bureaucracy that desperately needs reform. Almost all of the legislators who spoke on AB 1208, whether for or against, addressed the need for that reform. Now is the time to listen to those in the Legislative, Judicial and Executive branches, as well as those in the public, who believe the judicial branch is in need of fundamental change. This is not the time to wage a war with the Legislature while we seek to restore funding to our trial courts.
Sincerely,
Directors
Alliance of California Judges
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JCW: Yes folks, 3/4 of a billion dollars spent and you have nothing to show for it other than thousands of lost jobs lost to a system that actually will require that you hire extra people to run it.
Corrections and Clarifications from JCW
Down towards the end of this thread we’ve sought to clarify the opaqueness surrounding CCMS. There are 3 different flavors of CCMS and we wish to correct our own slight bit of misinformation. Without a CCMS V1 one would never have a CCMS V2. We’re not sure about V1 and we invite you to educate us about V1. However the remaining information was gained by checking the other sources of public information, such as the office of the chief information officer, the AOC’s own records and the BSA report.
CCMS V2 – The first deployed phase product was scoped to include case management activities for traffic and criminal functions within the courts. The development of the V2 product was challenged and was ultimately only implemented in Fresno County in July of 2006.
CCMS V3 – The second deployed phase product was scoped to include case management activities for civil, probate, small claims, and mental health functions within the courts. Pieces of the the V3 product is currently deployed in six counties, including: Los Angeles; Orange; Sacramento; San Diego; San Joaquin; and Ventura.
CCMS V4 – The third yet to be deployed vaporware product was scoped to include:
- All of the functionality of V2 and V3;
- Family law and juvenile justice case management;
- A public/partner portal;
- A set of standard justice partner data exchanges (purported to be 121 that have been shifted out of the project itself so that the AOC could call the application complete) Now they are classified as external connectors that are no longer a part of the CCMS V4 project
- Integration with document management systems; (The AOC and the Santa Clara Courts who do not use CCMS are working on the integration of a DMS system for CCMS. Do you see anything wrong with this picture?) DMS is now classified as an external connector and is no longer a part of the CCMS V4 project yet CCMS can’t function without some form of a document management system.
- Court interpreter scheduling;
- Court reporter scheduling, and;
- E-Filing (The e-filing capability and the partner portal capability are the reasons that lawyers groups back CCMS, the Judicial Council and the AOC and why no one bats an eye at the thought of Joe Dunn coughing up 4.5 million in state bar funds for CCMS ) Our position has been consistent insofar as we look at the legal profession gaining the most benefits out of CCMS.
- Much like a Realtor must have a state license and be a subscriber to a local multiple listing service to sell or list houses and that MLS fees pay for the realtors’ MLS systems, we believe ALL of the states lawyers should pay for CCMS via the State Bar if they want it so bad.
- If we’ve gotten anything incorrect here, please contact us at https://forms.hush.com/judicialcouncilwatcher with those corrections so we can make them.
If you want to clean up CCMS’s costs and development, tell a hundred thousand plus lawyers that they’re responsible for paying for it via user fees. It would still be cheaper to the average attorney than messengers running to the courthouse on their behalf or standing in line themselves.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please note that we’ve edited a number of media links to point directly towards Judicial Council and AOC news stories and will continue to develop our Judicial Council and AOC in the news page.
Thanks for your continued support,
JCW
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Wendy Darling
February 4, 2012
As usual, the AOC doesn’t “check” facts – they just make them up to conform to whatever the lie of the moment is.
Long live JCW. And long live the ACJ.
Michael Paul
February 4, 2012
The AOC’s fact check pages are a continuous distortion of the truth. It is their version of JCW’s Digital purgatory targeting legislators.
Elmy Kader
February 4, 2012
My many thanks to Res Ipsa, anna and Been There, you have taught a new word in the English language SWOV. This word apply to the members of these corrupt body’s (JC and AOC).
God bless the honorable Alliance of California Judges
Nathaniel Woodhull
February 4, 2012
The response by the AOC and Minnie-Me are further evidence of exactly why AB1208 is necessary! JCW has done a wonderful job outlining the development of CCMS V2; V3; V4. V1 was simply a “concept” that never was deployed anywhere. When Bill Vickrey first proposed the idea of this system (one that he dreamed up in Utah after ascending from a probation officer to chief of corrections to the head of their AOC in 5 years) it immediately became evident that such a “single system” didn’t exist and couldn’t be built. The “concept” was developed into V2-V4 via that wonderful team at Deloitte. Deloitte was ill-equipped to design and develop such a “system”, but the powers at be had wonderful personal relationships with many key people at Deloitte. Hundreds of millions of dollars later, (maybe a Billion) and with the benefit of an “audit”, the AOC’s dream computer system was finally exposed.
As the saying goes….follow the money….
courtflea
February 4, 2012
Excellent job of summarizing the facts Alliance and JCW. However, my recollection is that V4 was deployed to handle criminal and traffic cases . It flopped when tested in the Fresno court because the system cannot calculate and distribute the complex fine and fee system that exists in California. This has been the down fall of many new computer systems supposedly developed for the courts. Considering the amount of money and “brain trust” by staff that was spent on the CCMS (and other software developed by other companies), this is shocking. Crikey as I have said before, the AOC could have paid Microsoft and Bill Gates personally to develop a software that WORKS for what this POS has cost.
Michael Paul
February 5, 2012
Either myself or a member of my staff will check that on Monday. Public records we provided to JCW indicate that Fresno utilizes V2 for criminal and traffic and was on the upgrade list for V4.
Judicial Council Watcher
February 6, 2012
Forwarded from Michael’s android device:
Fresno currently utilizes CCMS V2 for criminal and traffic in 9 Fresno area courthouses.
They have not tried to implement CCMS V4 in Fresno.
(Electronic confirmation was made with infodesk at fresno.courts.ca.gov)
versal-versal
February 5, 2012
General Woodhull as usual has it right. Follow the money. CCMS is the house of cards that should expose the JC/AOC for everything they do wrong. Equally troubling is the JC/AOC attack on Assembly members who spoke in favor of AB 1208. These are hardworking elected constitutional officers who care about their communities and I am shocked our branch leadership calls them out for misrepresenting or lying about the factual issues in issue. It is sad to see the JC/AOC first line of defense is to always go on the attack to stifle any dissenting views. HRH 1 and J Huffman used this approach for years and as we can see nothing has changed with HRH 2 and the current JC . State Senators please take notice of this. Please don’t buy into the myth that anything has changed down at 455 Golden Gate or that the current CJ needs more time. The unfair response and spin to the legislative supporters of 1208 shows nothing has changed and nothing will until the JC is democratized.
lando
February 5, 2012
For years Judges who have offered dissenting views have felt the wrath of the JC/AOC and their insular allies that control the branch. Great care was taken to make sure that anyone the CJ appointed to the JC or to head the Presiding Judge committee or CJP would insure no dissenting opinions were to be tolerated. The AOC of course was run the same way. The excesses of such insular rule became apparent in the legislature with CCMS. Once again the then CJ , and leadership of the JC and AOC fought hard to stamp out even having an independent State Audit of CCMS. Fortunately the legislature did the right thing , ordered the audit and CCMS was exposed for the stunning financial failure it has become. This in turn led to other valid legislative concerns about how the JC was spending branch funds and the ultimate passage of 1208 in the Assembly . Now we see the new CJ and JC/AOC spin machine back on the attack claiming Assembly members who didn’t agree with them were lying. What arrogance. All of this shows nothing has changed and nothing will until the legislature and public take steps to democratize the JC and open up the branch to free and open debate including respect for dissenting and new view and opinions.
unionman575
February 5, 2012
Lando you nailed it: “Now we see the new CJ and JC/AOC spin machine back on the attack claiming Assembly members who didn’t agree with them were lying. What arrogance. All of this shows nothing has changed and nothing will until the legislature and public take steps to democratize the JC and open up the branch to free and open debate including respect for dissenting and new view and opinions.”
That’s why we are all here crowing like roosters statewide.
=)
courtflea
February 8, 2012
Thanks for the correction JCW. Whatever version it is, it is not working in fresno for traffic