- Based on AOC estimates, it would cost over $102 million to deploy CCMS V4 to San Luis Obispo (SLO) if a statewide infrastructure is put in place to facilitate deployment to additional courts (page 27). By subtracting out the costs for maintenance and operation of the system, GT cuts that figure to a little over $56.4 million (page 38). The costs of maintaining and operating the system are real costs that the courts would have to expend if CCMS is deployed, so we question the methodology that discounts those.
- GT concedes that, given the large cost involved in deploying to SLO, CCMS V4 can only be justified if the judicial branch also intends to deploy the system to multiple additional courts on the statewide CCMS V4 infrastructure (page 40). The cost of creating the foundation for future court deployments is nearly $47 million (id.). The branch has no more money to fund that project — the AOC and Judicial Council have already spent more than a half a billion dollars and they have no idea what it would cost to deploy CCMS statewide. This $200,000 report does not answer that question.
- Just deploying the system to SLO, without the statewide infrastructure that would permit deployment to other courts, will cost over $11 million, including costs to integrate with justice partners (page 55). That is nearly a million dollars per judge in the county. Does the SLO court have another $11 million laying around to install and operate CCMS V4? Why would SLO want to deploy this system at its own expense, when there are other case management systems that will do the job in SLO that can purchased off the shelf for far less? Will the $11 million come from the AOC and essentially be paid for by all of the courts?
- Local court costs for Fresno to install and operate V4 approach $18 million (id.). Fresno doesn’t have an extra $18 million, nor is the court likely to lay off employees to get it. Will the AOC (i.e. the other 57 county courts) foot the bill for Fresno to move forward with CCMS V4?
- The total cost to the ten proposed “Phase 2” courts — and these are in some cases only partial deployments of V4, by the way — is a little over $211 million (id.). The Judicial Council has spent down the Trial Court Trust Fund and Trial Court Improvement Fund to create CCMS as it currently exists, already having paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Deloitte and an army of court programmers and independent contractors. Where will another $211 million come from? Certainly not from the already devastated budgets of those trial courts.
- The $211 million, however, is just the cost to the local courts. Deployment to those ten courts would require one time statewide costs in excess of $25 million, and another $475 million statewide through FY 2020-2021 in ongoing costs (page 60). This means more than $710 million would be required over the next eight years to get the system operating, and keep it operating, less than all of the calendars in ten additional courts. That’s on top of the $550 million already spent. At this pace, the latest estimate of $1.9 billion to complete CCMS statewide now seems unrealistically low.
- The plan is for the AOC to provide about $190 million in supplemental funding to those ten courts (page 83). There is, of course, no source identified for any of this additional funding. Perhaps that will come from Legislature? (They seem to be great fans of CCMS of late.) Our view is that this money would have to be specifically appropriated by the Legislature, because this project has cost the trial courts too much already.
- Total “new funding” to support deployment of V4 to SLO and the other “Phase 2” courts is a little over $342 million through FY 2020-2021 (page 86). The source of these “new funds” is not clear. When the branch has been hit with $650 million in reductions, does anyone really believe these new funds will ever exist?
- Even if the system “works” and does everything its proponents claim it does, and even if there are no cost overruns or unexpected problems with V4 — an unrealistic expectation in light of past performance — the total return on investment through FY2020-2021 is a negative $67 million (id.). That accepts as an underlying premise that under the “no CCMS” option, each of those ten courts would have to replace their current case management systems in the next eight years with some other product (id.).
The report concludes by setting out several options designed to create an earlier positive return on investment (page 90). Not one of those options is even remotely feasible, given the current and ongoing financial crisis. We challenge the AOC, Judicial Council or anyone else to demonstrate how this project can ever be made anything other than what it is — an abject failure. The official death of CCMS can be delayed no longer. If all 58 courts and their many “justice partners” will ever be joined together by one case management system, it will not be this case management system.
In 2010, ironically on a mandatory court closure day, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee met to discuss an audit of CCMS. At that hearing, Justice Terrence Bruiniers and AOC staff argued against the audit. The AOC believed that former Chief Justice Ron George’s personal meetings with legislators would ensure the audit’s demise. They had not anticipated that the Alliance could persuade legislators to support the audit. The audit was approved and the release of the auditor’s report in February of 2011 revealed what we and many others have been saying for years — this project is a failure, and those who have overseen the expenditure of precious trial court funds on it have failed the court system.
Some observers think that CCMS will die a quiet death next Tuesday. We attach commentary from Bill Girdner of Courthouse News and Cheryl Miller of the Recorder on that subject. Given the audacity with which branch leaders have pushed this project forward over the protests of judges and others, you will understand our skepticism. We not only plan to attend the meeting and address the Council on your behalf, but we plan to draft a motion for the Council’s consideration so we don’t have another “pause” in CCMS that isn’t really a pause, or a vote that leaves the judiciary subject to more costly outbreaks of CCMS.
The Judicial Council needs to move beyond the denial stage and embrace the fact that CCMS must be permanently shelved. After spending over a half billion dollars of trial court funds, subjecting the branch to public ridicule and creating dissent amongst judges, the time has come to end this debacle. We expect a thorough investigation to determine if the taxpayers can be reimbursed for some of the losses incurred. We also expect that those responsible will be held to account for their lack of judgment in bringing this about. And finally, we demand that those decision makers not further compound their previous lack of judgment by spending more of our precious court funds on this failed project.
We trust we speak for all of our members when we express these concerns.
Directors
Alliance of California Judges
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From: Courthouse News service
Reason’s Return By BILL GIRDNER
The beast was fed even as the tearing of the judicial fabric in California had become almost audible with courts planning layoffs and closing courtrooms.
In her state of the judiciary address earlier this week, the chief justice said, “I want to take a moment to acknowledge the role that the Legislature had in helping inform decisions about CCMS.”
I read that to be a gracious concession. The Legislature has primarily bashed the project and the expenses tied to it. In last week’s budget subcommittee hearing, the legislators were peremptory and paternalistic in addressing the last-ditch defenders of the system.
Relying on the fancy-sounding techno-jargon that has been used successfully in the past to justify the project, Justice Bruiniers quoted from a report saying, “CCMS will perform as designed once it is deployed to the production environment.” He was interrupted by Mike Feuer, who is also head of the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee and who normally can be counted to support the initiatives of court administrators. “I appreciate it,” said Feuer, “but I’m prepared to move that we suspend the program with regard to all courts who aren’t currently up and running.”
Bruiniers was followed by Judge James Herman from Santa Barbara who fared no better. “This is not a system like a laptop computer that you can just punch a button on and shut it down,” said Herman.
He was interrupted by the head of the subcomittee, Gilbert Cedillo, who said, as though talking to a child, “We appreciate the magnitude of this. Basically, to use the parent language, we’re taking a little time out here, mmm’kay?” I wondered when I heard that exchange if the committee members had been tipped by the chief justice or an emissary that she was OK with shutting the program down and the Legislature could act as executioner.
So when the chief thanked the Legislature for its help in making decisions about the program, I thought that statement in turn could be interpreted as saying, thanks for taking on that role. Whether that guesswork is right or not, the two events brought the politics around the case management program back down to the ground. When I heard a mere two months ago that the administrators wanted to go ahead with inserting the latest version of the beast into ten trial courts in California, I had the sense that I had fallen down a rabbit hole into a bureaucratic Wonderland.
The notion that they would go ahead with the program, and spend the hundreds of millions that decision entails, while the court budget was being cut to the bone and into the bone, engendered a sense of helplessness, a kind of fatalism in knowing that reason and sense had left the building, never to return. The committee’s decision to pull the plug meant those two characters had thankfully returned. I also had the idea that a sort of grand bargain might be in place, that if the top brass of the courts agreed to give up on the case management project, the state Senate would kill a bill meant to reduce the size and power of the bureaucracy at the top of the courts.
If that were so, or some variation of that deal were in place, it would leave an increasingly desperate battle still to be fought. If no more money is forthcoming from the Legislature, the pressure from the trial courts to take as much as possible out of the bureaucracy will continue. And in their fancy headquarters in San Francisco, the bureaucrats can be counted on to cling to their disintegrating empire for as long as they can. “I can tell you that the judiciary is undergoing a transformation,” the chief justice told the Legislature, “but that is an understatement.”
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Consultant Puts Price Tag on Further Deployment of CCMS
Cheryl Miller
The Recorder
March 22, 2012
SACRAMENTO — Deploying a long-awaited case management system to just 11 of California’s 58 trial courts would cost $1.2 billion over the next 10 years, according to a report released in anticipation of a pivotal Judicial Council meeting on Tuesday.
In comparison, shelving the Court Case Management System and allowing those same 11 courts to independently replace their filing software as needed would cost $1.13 billion — or $67 million less — over that same 10-year period, the analysis from consultant Graham Thornton concluded.
The report cast more doubt on the future of CCMS, the in-development network that branch leaders once promised would link all 58 trial courts while providing easy access to information for litigants and lawyers. Just last week, a state Assembly budget committee voted to freeze additional spending on CCMS until the Legislature can review the troubled program.
The Judicial Council, which is scheduled to review the 92-page report at its Tuesday meeting, will consider three options for CCMS’ future: Deploy the network to San Luis Obispo County Superior Court and later, 10 additional courts through 2021; stop work on CCMS for a year and then deploy the system to the 11 courts; or scrap statewide plans for CCMS and allow individual courts to make piecemeal use of what’s been developed.
Although branch leaders have given no indication as to what their favored option is, the budget Gov. Jerry Brown introduced in January offered no extra money for CCMS, and in fact threatened to ax $125 million from the judiciary’s budget if voters fail to pass his temporary tax hikes.
In an email sent to other court leaders on Wednesday, Yolo County Superior Court Presiding Judge David Rosenberg, who chairs the Judicial Council’s presiding judges’ advisory committee, said he favors terminating CCMS as a statewide project and allowing trial courts to choose their own case management systems, so long as they meet certain standards.
“I have come to the conclusion that we simply cannot put all our eggs into the CCMS basket, and that the original vision of CCMS is just not achievable or realistic in 2012,” Rosenberg wrote.
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Costly state courts high-tech update fate in hands of judicial leaders
By Howard Mintz- Mercury News
A 10-year quest to install a $2 billion computer upgrade across the state’s courts has been dubbed everything from boondoggle to technological “bridge to nowhere.”
And now one of the largest tech projects in recent state history — a plan to burnish California’s 58 trial courts with a Silicon Valley-style electronic makeover — has reached a make or break point because the price may be too high when budget cuts are slamming courthouses everywhere.
The system was meant to speed up the wheels of justice by linking courts to each other and state agencies such as the Department of Justice, replacing paper court files with electronic documents and allowing judges with a click of a mouse to check everything from criminal histories to child support payments around the state.
It also will enable the public to e-file documents, access information, and make payments from the internet.
The state’s Judicial Council, the court system’s policy arm, on Tuesday will consider whether to push forward with the so-called “CCMS” tech overhaul, lambasted by critics in recent years for its mushrooming cost. California taxpayers have sunk $560 million into the project, handing the council members a choice of spending more or cutting their losses.
A state audit last year blasted the project for running amok, singling out the state Administrative Office of the Courts for lack of oversight. Even Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the council’s chairwomanand a longtime CCMS supporter, in recent months suggested it may be time to pull back, comparing the project to having “a Ferrari in the garage but we can’t afford the gas.”
“At the end of the day, the question facing us is: can we afford it?” said Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge James Herman, a council member who prepared a report on the project.
The council’s vote comes as state lawmakers are growing increasingly skeptical of writing checks for CCMS. An Assembly committee last week voted unanimously to put most of the tech upgrade on hold.
Everyone agrees the project has reached a do-or-die stage, with judges up and down California divided over its worth.
Eight presiding judges, including from trial courts in San Francisco, San Mateo and Los Angeles, last week urged the council to pull the plug. Alameda County would be one of the first Bay Area courts to get the new technology, but Presiding Judge C. Don Clay told this newspaper the project is flawed and should be aborted.
And Richard Loftus, Santa Clara County’s presiding judge and long a CCMS advocate, said it may be time to abandon it.
“Hindsight is 20/20,” he said. “I think what happened is that the vision was too ambitious. Realistically, it’s not something we can afford.”
When first approved more than a decade ago, the project was indeed ambitious. The goal was to create one unified supercomputer system for all of California’s trial courts, many of which were equipped with technology that was more jalopy than Ferrari.
The upgrade had widespread support, including from then-Gov. Gray Davis, and the state was flush with cash.
But as the project drew closer to reality, its cost ballooned and it became a lightning rod for judges who were absorbing more than $600 million in budget cuts over the past three years.
Now, there is a drumbeat to cut the judiciary’s losses and find less expensive ways to improve court technology, letting local judges pick their own upgrades without trying to invent a legal system computer superhighway.
“Anyone will tell you, if you’re stuck in a hole, stop digging,” said Sacramento Superior Court Judge Maryanne Gilliard, a leader in the Alliance of California Judges, a CCMS critic. “We’ve spent ten years on this project. It needs to be declared dead.”
Despite the blistering critiques, the scrap heap is not a foregone conclusion. A separate audit released last week suggested three options:
- Deploy the full CCMS program in one test county, San Luis Obispo, which would cost more than $20 million;
- Install it in 10 counties, including Alameda, Marin and Santa Cruz, and wait out the recession to go statewide; or
- End the project now.
- The audit pointed out that with or without CCMS, many trial courts need technology upgrades that will cost some amount of money. And the audit projects that by 2017 CCMS would save the state about $33 million a year by cutting the cost of everything from collecting fines to fetching court files from one county to another.
Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, was among those who voted last week to put much of the project on hold for now, but still believes it should go forward in pieces and not abandoned altogether. “There’s no doubt been some hiccups along the way,” she said. “But if we abandon it, what do we do? We have court (computer) systems that don’t work. Do you start over five years down the road? I think we have to move forward.”
unionman575
March 26, 2012
All roads lead to a Tani recall.
Ben S.
March 26, 2012
What a bunch of boondoggle morons. What a waste of time, money and development.
wearyant
March 26, 2012
My eyes glazed over as I tried to cut through all the bullshit in that massive missive offered up by the AOC goons for their puppet JC, but our courageous judges in the ACJ set it out succinctly and cogently for those who spend all their time on real work (not make-work) for a living in the judicial branch. Thank you, true, good and loyal servants of the judicial branch!
Recall Tani!
Long live the ACJ!
Wendy Darling
March 26, 2012
Published today, Monday, March 26, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Dueling Reports Set Stage for Decision on Future of It Project
By MARIA DINZEO
In anticipation of Tuesday’s meeting of California’s Judicial Council, court administrators posted online consultant’s report that favored proceeding with a deeply controversial IT project. A group of judges promptly challenged the council to show the project is anything but “an abject failure.”
Consultant Grant Thornton was hired in December 2011 to write a feasibility study installation of the new software in ten trial courts in California. The study, that cost the courts $200,000 to prepare, proposed three options and recommended the first, which is to install the latest version of the Case Management System in San Luis Obispo Superior Court and continue from there.
The context of the report is one where trial courts are closing courtrooms and huge layoffs are planned. Los Angeles alone plans to lay off 300 employees and close 50 courtrooms, as a result of two year-on-year cuts in the court budget totaling $650 million.
In its dueling recommendation, the Alliance of California Judges wrote, “We challenge the AOC, Judicial Council or anyone else to demonstrate how this project can ever be made anything other than what it is — an abject failure.”
The group has long campaigned for fundamental reform in how the court’s budget is handled. The CCMS project, which has cost more than a half-billion dollars, has served as Exhibit 1 in that campaign. “The official death of CCMS can be delayed no longer,” urged the Alliance.
In the Grant Thornton report, commissioned by the Administrative Office of the Courts, the consultant says the cost of installing CCMS’s latest version, called V4 in San Luis Obispo, would run to $56 million. However that sum does not account for maintenance and operation costs after installation.
Those costs were, however, included in a January estimate from the court administrators that put the figure of installation at $102 million. The administrators have been criticized in the past for the shifting nature of their financial numbers, including a blast from the state Auditor last year who concluded they had understated costs.
The Alliance pounced on the discrepancy.
“The costs of maintaining and operating the system are real costs that the courts would have to expend if CCMS is deployed,” said the Alliance statement sent on Sunday. “So we question the methodology that discounts those.”
The Grant Thornton report also recommends that the San Luis Obispo insertion of V4 serve as the foundation for further installation of the software in ten more trial courts. The consultant argues that the cost for installing it in San Luis Obispo can only be justified if is defrayed by installation in more courts, a course that would lock the California court system into the controversial software.
The additional courts listed as likely converts were Inyo, Marin, Mendocino, Orange, San Diego, San Joaquin, Santa Cruz, Ventura and Alameda.
But the argument that it would make financial sense to continue with the project was also roundly dismissed by the Alliance.
“The branch has no more money to fund that project — the AOC and Judicial Council have already spent more than a half a billion dollars and they have no idea what it would cost to deploy CCMS statewide,” said the Alliance statement. “This $200,000 report does not answer that question.”
The numbers in the Grant Thornton report skyrocket when it comes to that further deployment. It would cost another $211 million to put the system into the ten courts and cost California another $475 million over the next nine years to maintain a statewide system supporting those courts, according to the consultant.
“Where will another $211 million come from?” asks the Alliance. “Certainly not from the already devastated budgets of those trial courts.”
“After spending over a half billion dollars of trial court funds, subjecting the branch to public ridicule and creating dissent amongst judges, the time has come to end this debacle,” the Alliance concluded. ” We expect a thorough investigation to determine if the taxpayers can be reimbursed for some of the losses incurred. We also expect that those responsible will be held to account for their lack of judgment in bringing this about.”
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Recall the Chief Justice.
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
March 26, 2012
1.2 million signatures puts you back on the ballot Tani.
It’s time for a recall.
anna
March 26, 2012
I second that!!!
Lando
March 27, 2012
I had so much optimism when HRH 1 resigned and Tani got appointed. I soon came to see that this hope for meaningful change was a total illusion. Her honor is in every way as arrogant and out of touch as her predecessor. Each seems to have bought into this false premise that only they speak for and run an entire branch of government. Nothing in the California constitution gives them this power. A healthy democracy would never allow 1 Judge to run a branch of government in a state as complex and diverse as this. Tani has done nothing to control the AOC . The Judicial Council remains a closed and insular group . Reckless spending to the tune of over 250,000 a day continues to support CCMS. Tani and her minion J Bruiners have continued to make incredible claims about the viability of CCMS that aren’t accurate as CCMS is not working and isn’t deployed or finished. The AOC continues to grow while the trial courts lay off employees and cut back public services. Her honor Tani , is now responsible for all of this mess. She can no longer lay the blame for all this trainwreck on HRH 1. I am ready. Give me a clipboard and bunch of Recall Tani forms and I will work every weekend to help obtain those 1.2 signatures . In addition I will also be willing to meet with anyone here to help with a recall Tani campaign. Enough is really enough.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
I’m ready too, Lando. Let’s get busy.
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
March 27, 2012
“I am ready. Give me a clipboard and bunch of Recall Tani forms and I will work every weekend to help obtain those 1.2 signatures . In addition I will also be willing to meet with anyone here to help with a recall Tani campaign. Enough is really enough.”
Lando – I think a number of us are ready to pick up that clip board.
=)
wearyant
March 27, 2012
I’ll take a clipboard.
unionman575
March 27, 2012
https://recalltani.wordpress.com/
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 27, 2012
Listen to these bozos live. Justice Bruiniers is still touting the “wonderful” system that is CCMS. It is ready to be deployed now. He cannot even keep the numbers he has used in previous meetings straight. What a joke!
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
Well, General Woodhull, Bruiniers isn’t just drinking the kool-aid, he’s bottling it up and trying to force it down the throuts of those who know better than to drink it.
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 27, 2012
This CJ meeting is absolutely laughable! They are talking about leveraging costs that they spent on CCMS and selling it to other vendors??? Are they serious???? They think that the “millions of lines of code” that were developed by Deloitte personnel could be sold to anyone???? Who would want something written with millions of lines of code? Now they are talking about spending over $3 Million over the next six months by hiring Deloitte people to tell them if there are things within CCMS that can be sold to others. Justice Baxter calls it “salvage value”. The AOC toadie says well we are trying to avoid using the word “salvage”. Of course you are.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
It’s called “group think”, General Woodhull. And is evident for all to see, it is the only kind of thinking they are capable of engaging in.
My reaction in listening to this is to want to take a long, hot shower, with lots and lots of soap. But even that won’t wash away the stink.
And how, exactly, does one “leverage” stupidity?
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
March 27, 2012
They can’t say the word, tuh, tuh, tuh — terminate! Then there’s a discussion as to what that word means. That figures. They keep saying CCMS works! That’s a bold faced lie! I guess in Tani-speak, a variation of the truth. But they really should be called out on that one. To my knowledge, CCMS is NOT a working product. It’ll be my new byline, dammit!
CCMS does not work!
Pass AB1208!
Recall Tani! (Hey, I can dream, can’t I?)
wearyant
March 27, 2012
It’s very difficult to listen to this horror story live. I now have a splitting headache. Things like, now these clowns are concerned about the warranty? They claim they’ll lose the warranty if this debacle is paused. And on and on it goes. They must spend over two million dollars to deploy — oh, gawd. If former lawyers who become judges can’t protect themselves when entering into a contact — well, we’re all in a very bad place. And some clown keeps playing with a telephone …. Excedrin, please.
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 27, 2012
I cannot believe some of the things being said. Someone just asked if there was even a need for a statewide integrated system…What? You spent $550 Million and are just asking that question now?????? I need something a lot stronger than Excedrin. I’m off to see my doctor…
anna
March 27, 2012
What do people know about Frederick “Fritz” Ohlrich? And why was HRH the 1st so, wedded to using law enforcement types for administrators?
Ohlrich was a sheriff and Vickery was a probation officer. What gives?
Also, why did that qualify him to sit on a CJER panel?
Since when does a lay person get to opine on judicial ethics?
Why is he retiring? I have my suspicions. Does anyone else?
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
“And why was HRH the 1st so wedded to using law enforcement types for administrators?”
Any line staff employee at the AOC can tell you why: to make sure that the AOC and related administrative functions are run like a police state. And it is.
And, Anna, this isn’t the only sudden “retirement” you’re probably going to be seeing in the next couple of months.
Long live the ACJ.
anna
March 27, 2012
Of all the people he could have picked, he picked him? A court administrator from the Muni court in LA??? WTF???
What did he have on George? Or, what did George want him to do?
Anyone??
Res Ipsa Loquitor
March 27, 2012
No information on his retirement, but Fritz was one of those court administrators who were absolutely LOVED by the CJ and Vickrey. Another court administrator they loved was Sheila Gonzales Calabro, and well, we know how all that love turned out in her case.
It cannot be explained rationally, and whether or not these recipients of adulation were similarly beloved by their courts — was not known and frankly, no one cared. (Not to imply that Fritz was not popular in LA).
Fritz and Sheila (and a few judges I could name who are now sitting on the courts of appeal) were generally outgoing, always had a smile, were witty, very loyal, and always promoted the official party line. Their favor with the CJ was evidenced by their frequent appointment to JC Committees and the JC itself, often rotating on and off the JC, but never being outside the “action.”. Their demeanor was collegial and projected competence and confidence. No one ever questioned whether the image matched the work the person was capable of doing. I cannot speak of Fritz because I know little about his work with the Court, but in Sheila’s case, I think the fact she was well liked led to her being given a task (CCMS) that any business person would have known was outside her field of competence.
In short, a good argument for the need to democratize the JC.
unionman575
March 27, 2012
“(Not to imply that Fritz was not popular in LA).”
Holy shit are you joking?
He was NOT popular in LA I can assure you of that Res.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
Published today, Tuesday, March 27, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Debate Over Fate of California Courts IT Project Underway
By MARIA DINZEO
With labor demonstrators chanting against it outside and lawyer groups arguing for it inside, judges on California’s Judicial Council on Tuesday morning discussed the fate of a controversial ten-year-old IT project. A judge on the council suggested the cost could reach an astronomical $5 billion over the next ten years.
A consultant from the Grant Thornton firm presented the financial options for going forward with the project but was questioned by judges on the possibility of buying off-the-shelf systems.
The sums under discussion remained enormous as they have been through most of the ten-year development of the Court Case Management System. The final version of that system has yet to put into operation in a single trial court in California.
By way of contrast, a big court system on the West Coast in Seattle’s King County Superior Court spent $4.7 million to complete and install a new IT system a little over a year ago. That system allows lawyers to file their papers over the internet, allowing them to bypass runners who charge to take paper documents to the court.
The most immediate question before California’s Judicial Council on Tuesday is whether to put that latest version of its home-grown CCMS, the one that allows electronic filing, into one small trial court, San Luis Obispo Superior Court. But that relatively small step starts a chain reaction of costs that winds up costing $700 million, according to the consultant commissioned by California’s court administrators.
“You’ve got around $231 million in one-time costs that will be required to deploy CCMS V4,” Grant Thornton consultant Graeme Finley told the council.
“That’s all new money that has to be arrived at. You also have continuing costs. That’s about $120 million. You then have continuing statewide costs. Some of that is new money, it’s also the cost of maintaining and operating [older versions] V2 and V3.”
“When you add that, and the $354 million, and the statewide continuing costs, about $475 million, about $231 million in one-time spending and there’s about $475 million dollars in total continuing costs and current system operations costs, V2 and V3 and CCMS V4. When you add all of that together. That’s the total amount of $706 million money that’s going to be spent on IT related costs between now and 2021.”
Judges on the council then began asking questions about those costs and whether there was a cheaper way to go.
Judge Rosenberg from Yolo County asked, “My court is about the same size as San Luis Obispo, Marin and Santa Cruz. You’re conclusion is that those courts are going to wind up spending something over $3 million over that 10-year period. I have checked with my staff at to the cost of alternative programs for my court, a full-on case management system that provides e-filing that exists right now. They’ve informed me that it will cost $500,000 to purchase it off the shelf, then about 80,000 a year.”
“So, if I figure that out over a 10-year period, that’s about 1.3 million,” Rosenberg continued. “That’s a big difference. Your number is two to one. So, if my number is correct, that changes the equation, does it not?”
Consultant Finley replied, “It would. I can’t comment on your estimate, I don’t know the facts behind it.”
Rosenberg continued his questioning,
The 10-year cost for CCMS for 11 [trial courts] is 1.2 billion, if I got that correct. Would it be fair to say that the cost over ten years for all 58 trial courts would be closer to 5 billion?”
The consultant also ducked that question.
“It’s easy to construct different scenarios and it would change the numbers, but we weren’t able to do that,” said Finley.
Judge David Rubin then took over.
“The base of the costs, you didn’t look or talk to anybody about specific pieces of software that might be cheaper than what this report said was out there?
“Right,” said Finley.
“OK,” said Rubin.
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Recall the Chief Justice.
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
March 27, 2012
“By way of contrast, a big court system on the West Coast in Seattle’s King County Superior Court spent $4.7 million to complete and install a new IT system a little over a year ago.”
Oh, Lord in Heaven! So near, yet so far away …
CCMS does NOT work!
JusticeCalifornia
March 27, 2012
Judge Rosenberg rocks.
Judicial Council Watcher
March 27, 2012
Not bad for a gentleman perilously being sucked into the light of digital purgatory. The notion that there’s anything marketable about this product is nonsense.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
Also published today, Tuesday, March 27, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo (Ms. Dinzeo is very busy, and diligent, today):
Judges in San Luis Obispo and Fresno Oppose Installation of Money-Hungry IT System
By MARIA DINZEO
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – As California judges on the Judicial Council deliberate over whether to abandon a costly statewide case management system, the focus of the battle is centered on San Luis Obispo, a small court on the central coast with 12 judges and three commissioners.
If the council ignores a legislative vote last week halting further spending on the project and decides to continue with the controversial Court Case Management System, the court will be the first to get the latest version, V4. At a time when courtrooms across the states are closing, Judge Jeff Burke of San Luis Obispo says the Administrative Office of the Courts is wasting money trying to keep the project alive when it should be channeling all possible funds toward keeping courthouses open.
“The reason that they’re closing these courthouses is because of the diversion of hundreds of millions to CCMS. There are hundreds of millions more that will be spent on this system that could be spent on court operations,” Burke said in an interview.
Bureaucrats from the AOC say the current computer system in San Luis Obispo is failing and desperately needs CCMS.
“We have an old DOS based system that they’ve been eager to replace for quite a while. It is old and creaky. I don’t think it’s a critical need,” Burke countered. “The need I perceive the court has is maintaining the employees that are here now and not on this Ferrari computer system, to keep court services in tact. If it gets worse, we will be laying people off. I think that’s a shame.”
Burke said that several years ago, his court looked into replacing its computer system with an off-the-shelf product, but the AOC put a stop to it. “Years ago we had a contract with a company in Texas for a case management system,” he said. “The AOC put the breaks on it. They said, ‘no, we’re building our own system.'”
At the meeting, Grant Thornton consultant Graeme Finley said it will cost about $56 million to deploy V4 to San Luis Obispo, with most of that money going to lay a foundation to install the system in at least 10 more subsequent courts.
“Given the cost involved in deploying CCMS, which is far larger than you would ever spend deploys a single case management system to a single court, the deployment of CCMS V4 to San Luis Obispo really only makes sense if the branch also intends to deploy multiple additional courts to a statewide CCMS infrastructure,” Finley said.
“It was always designed to be a statewide system or at least a system that has a significant fraction of the statewide case volume on it and the numbers only really work if you have a significant number of the statewide case volume running through the system. Deploying one court on to the system doesn’t really make sense economically.”
Coming after San Luis Obispo on the list of courts listed for possible installation of CCMS V4 is the superior court in Fresno.
But , said Fresno’s Judge Kent Hamlin, his court does not have the $18 million they would have to put up.
“Basically, our court is stuck,” Hamlin said.
In addressing the council Tuesday morning, Hamlin advocated a different position as a director of the Alliance of California Judges, a reform group critical of the project. The Alliance sent out a report over the weekend blasting CCMS as an “abject failure,” saying it is time to kill the project and assess blame for a half-billion-dollar waste of public funds over the last ten years.
“The initial vision of a case management system that would be operated in all courts and link them in realtime is a failure,” said Fresno’s Hamlin.
“That vision needs to be abandoned,” he said. “To continue to move forward with the idea that we’re going to deploy to 10 courts, phases of development, ultimately a statewide infra structure in place, it is a failed effort. If there was ever a system that will link the courts, it is not this system.”
“This body needs to make the difficult decision today to end that project and save the money to deliver it to the trial courts so that we can keep our doors open and our staff paid,” said Hamlin.
From San Luis Obispo, Judge Burke said his court is divided on its support of CCMS.
“Our court is about evenly split. I think it’s fair to say that we have a few that favor a few that don’t and a group in the middle that will deal with it whichever way it goes.”
Burke also took issue with characterizations of his court’s current computer system at Tuesday’s meeting. “I’ve heard characterizations of the system we have as an inaccessible meat grinder unless CCMS is installed. That’s too much hyperbole for me,” he said. “We’re doing pretty well here in San Luis Obispo. I don’t think the good service we provide here will be improved by spending hundreds of millions more on CCMS.”
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Recall the Chief Jusitce.
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
March 27, 2012
Hon. Hull, CCMS does NOT work. Why else is it contemplated to be parsed for parts? An operating automobile, be it a Ferrari or Volkswagen, would not be chopped for parts unless its ownership must be hidden.
Wesley Rocks!
CCMS does NOT WORK!
Long live the ACJ!
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 27, 2012
If Justice Hull thinks this turkey is so good, why doesn’t he a a few of his 1% friends “buy it” from the State and then market it himself. He’d make a fortune…plus I’d like to see all the trial courts restore the $550 Million lost on this “program”, er uh wonderful system that works so well…
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 27, 2012
I see that parts for a ’92 Yugo are as low as $20.52 for replacement fuel filters and ”88 Yugo brake pads go for as little as $23.93 a set. WOW, at that rate, the AOC out to be able to recoup a Gazillion Dollars from CCMS!
Tonysthebest
March 27, 2012
Tony. Good Line! Yugo is right!
wearyant
March 27, 2012
From behind my computer screen, I vote that the 16 million dollars from Deloitte go to trial court operations! Second?
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
I second that motion. All in favor say aye.
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
March 27, 2012
Second.
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 27, 2012
Okay, so we spent all day to shelve the thing, now we will throw good money after bad to find out that there is no “salvage value” to anything associated with CCMS. All of us that have been saying for the past 6+ years that CCMS is a “turkey” are either ill-informed or speaking untruths for our own purposes, yet the JC just decided to pull the plug. Uh, huh…I think I understand.
“But then again, when you don’t know everything that you don’t understand it is hard to get through life.” (an unnamed Justice on the Court of Apeals)
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
Updated from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Controversial IT Project Bites Dust
By MARIA DINZEO
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – With labor demonstrators chanting against it outside, the judges on California’s governing council for the courts voted unanimously at about three o’clock to terminate a controversial IT project that has been in development ten years, cost the state a half-billion dollars, and rent the judiciary of California into opposing camps.
The Alliance of California Judges, a group that has attacked the IT project as a “fiasco,” reacted by urging that the decision to pull the plug on the enormous and financially disastrous endeavor should be followed by an effort to get money back from the system’s developer.
“Today’s action is only the first step and we remain concerned that the JC has not truly and completely abandoned this failed project,” said the statement from the Alliance.
“An investigation needs to be launched to determine whether the public is entitled to any reimbursement for the over $500 million that has been wasted. Furthermore, those responsible for this debacle must be identified and appropriate action taken so that the judicial branch is protected in the future.”
The project began to unravel when a legislative committee voted to have the state auditor look into it. The auditor came back last year with a damning report that blasted the management of the project and said the Administrative Office of the Courts has understated the cost of the project by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Trial judges have over the course of the last year often pointed to the actions by the chief proponent of the system, Justice Terence Bruiniers, in opposing that audit. Those efforts are now coming back to the fore as longtime critics of the project seek an accounting for its failure.
“Members of the Judicial Council opposed a legislative audit of CCMS in 2010. Thankfully that audit occurred and we now know what a financial disaster this mismanaged project has cost the public:closed courtrooms, massive staff lay offs, and diminished service to those who seek redress through their courts.”
The decision to terminate the project also affects legislative debate over a bill to reform the way money is spent by the trial courts. A bill that has passed the Assembly would take away much of the power of the administrative office steer the money to favored projects such as CCMS, and, according towards critics, towards courts that follow the will of the administrators and install the software.
The Alliance and the labor unions for court workers have been pushing in favor of that legislation which currently lies quietly in the California Senate, awaiting action. A possible bargain between legislators critical of the money spent on the IT project and the chief justice and her court administrators who oppose AB 1208 is that the bill would not get through the Senate provided the project was axed.
In the legislative process, further compromises could well follow.
In reacting to the defeat of the IT project, the Alliance pressed the case for the legislation.
“The lack of oversight and failed management of this project underscores the desperate need for reform of the courts governance structure. Our system works best with checks and balances. It fails when there exists only a blank check,” said the Alliance.
Earlier on Tuesday, a judge on the governing Judicial Council suggested the cost of the ambitious but bungled project could reach an astronomical $5 billion over the next ten years.
Over the course of the morning, a director from the Grant Thornton consulting firm calmly presented numbers for the Court Case Management System that soared into the hundreds of millions for software reviled by many in the very courts where early versions of the system are in place for not only its cost but its heavy labor demands.
By way of contrast, a big court system on the West Coast in Seattle’s King County Superior Court spent $4.7 million to complete and install a new IT system a little over a year ago. That system allows lawyers to file their papers over the internet, allowing them to bypass runners who charge to take paper documents to the court.
The most immediate question before California’s Judicial Council on Tuesday is whether to put that latest version of its home-grown CCMS, the one that allows electronic filing, into one small trial court, San Luis Obispo Superior Court. But that relatively small step starts a chain reaction of costs that winds up costing $700 million, according to the consultant commissioned by California’s court administrators.
“You’ve got around $231 million in one-time costs that will be required to deploy CCMS V4,” Grant Thornton consultant Graeme Finley told the council.
“That’s all new money that has to be arrived at. You also have continuing costs. That’s about $120 million. You then have continuing statewide costs. Some of that is new money, it’s also the cost of maintaining and operating [older versions] V2 and V3.”
“When you add that, and the $354 million, and the statewide continuing costs, about $475 million, about $231 million in one-time spending and there’s about $475 million dollars in total continuing costs and current system operations costs, V2 and V3 and CCMS V4. When you add all of that together. That’s the total amount of $706 million money that’s going to be spent on IT related costs between now and 2021.”
Judges on the council then began asking questions about those costs and whether there was a cheaper way to go.
Judge Rosenberg from Yolo County asked, “My court is about the same size as San Luis Obispo, Marin and Santa Cruz. You’re conclusion is that those courts are going to wind up spending something over $3 million over that 10-year period. I have checked with my staff at to the cost of alternative programs for my court, a full-on case management system that provides e-filing that exists right now. They’ve informed me that it will cost $500,000 to purchase it off the shelf, then about 80,000 a year.”
“So, if I figure that out over a 10-year period, that’s about 1.3 million,” Rosenberg continued. “That’s a big difference. Your number is two to one. So, if my number is correct, that changes the equation, does it not?”
Consultant Finley replied, “It would. I can’t comment on your estimate, I don’t know the facts behind it.”
Rosenberg continued his questioning,
The 10-year cost for CCMS for 11 [trial courts] is 1.2 billion, if I got that correct. Would it be fair to say that the cost over ten years for all 58 trial courts would be closer to 5 billion?”
The consultant also ducked that question.
“It’s easy to construct different scenarios and it would change the numbers, but we weren’t able to do that,” said Finley.
Judge David Rubin then took over.
“The base of the costs, you didn’t look or talk to anybody about specific pieces of software that might be cheaper than what this report said was out there?
“Right,” said Finley.
“OK,” said Rubin.
Editor’s Note: This story is being written over the course of the day and will change substantially, to include further debate before the council as well as statements from union members opposing the IT project and lawyers favoring it.
Long live the ACJ.
Little Help Needed
March 27, 2012
What a horrible experience it was listening to that bunch all day. Duty, though, required it. LOL
Anyway, can anyone summarize to me what changes were made to Option 3 when it finally passed? I’ll bet not one member of the council knows exactly what they did. What did Edith Matthai get? What did Herman get? In other words, the motion passed unanimously, but “as amended” or “as clarified” by Matthai (an attorney member of the Council) and Herman
(a Syncophant member of the Council). Sounded an awful lot like they really haven’t abandoned their statewide computer system aspirations, at least to me.
JusticeCalifornia
March 27, 2012
The ACJ is appropriately questioning whether the JC “truly and completely abandoned this failed project”.
The vote on option 3 AS STATED BY JUDGE HERMAN passed.
As stated by Herman, V-4 may still be alive.
In the report (page 14), which Herman used as a reference for his motion, the following language is used as the first item under option 3: “Terminating V4 as a statewide court technology solution and winding down the project”
He changed it to stopping DEPLOYMENT of V-4 as a statewide court technology solution– and I am not sure if he included “winding down the project” — we need to check the transcript.
We know from Grant Thornton’s report that V-4 is not ready for deployment. I wonder if this language change and vote will be used to spend more money on DEVELOPMENT of V-4 to ready it for deployment?
Just another pause that isn’t? Let’s see.
Nathaniel Woodhull
March 27, 2012
Quoting from one of my favorite Star Trek characters: “He’s dead Jim” So is CCMS
Tonysthebest
March 27, 2012
Funny!
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
Quoting from one of the best movies of all time, and an appropriate analogy to today’s events, from The Wizard of Oz, because CCMS, by any name, or “option”is still a wicked witch:
Munchkins gather before Glinda and City Fathers and Dorothy and sing —
smoke cloud appears and Witch enters — Munchkins react
MUNCHKINS
(sing)
Tra la la la la
Tra la la tra la la
Tra la la la la la.. . . . . .
Witch looks at Witch of the East’s feet protruding from under the farm house —
Dorothy and Glinda — Dorothy holding Toto as she looks to left — is frightened —
speaks with Glinda —
DOROTHY
I thought you said she was dead.
GLINDA
That was her sister — the Wicked Witch of
the East. This is the Wicked Witch of the
West. And she’s worse than the other one
was.
Recall the Chief Justice.
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
Latest update from Courthouse News Service and Maria Dinzeo:
IT Project Sinks in Sea of Criticism
By MARIA DINZEO
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – With labor demonstrators chanting outside, the judges on California’s governing council for the courts voted unanimously Tuesday afternoon to terminate a controversial IT project that has been in development ten years, cost the state a half-billion dollars, and rent the judiciary of California into opposing camps.
The mood was solemn around the council table as members deliberated over how to dispose of the costly project, after a consultant from Grant Thornton admitted it would cost the judiciary $700 million to install the system to 11 courts over the next ten years.
Ultimately, the council found the courts as a whole could no longer afford to support the project and decided to allocate $8.6 million to shelve the Court Case Management system and salvage any useful technology from it, including the ability for lawyers to file documents online.
“It’s just not the right time to go forward on this project,” said Judge James Herman from Santa Barbara, a supporter of CCMS, after the meeting.
An option recommended by a hired consultant was to deploy the final version of the system, V4, to San Luis Obispo, and then install it in ten more courts. But that option was roundly rejected by judges on the council.
“A statewide connected system is just not feasible in the current climate and in the foreseeable future. It’s just too expensive,” said Judge David Rosenberg of Yolo County, a non-voting council member who proposed scrapping the system.
“The Legislature and the governor are not going to give us a check or series of checks for $5 or $6 billion dollars for single case management system. So I’m a realist. We know that the need now is to keep the courtrooms open,” Rosenberg added. “I think the new vision is to allow the 58 trial courts to develop their own case management systems. Frankly, I believe the current on-the-shelf products are considerably cheaper than whatever we can produce through CCMS, but I’m willing to give the courts those options.”
Labor unions have been a driving force of criticism against spending on the massive project, and lobbyist Michelle Castro with the Service Employees International Union said of Tuesday’s decision, “We think it is definitely a step in the right direction. But we wish the motion was a little tighter to eliminate wiggle room for future spending on CCMS and any of this kind of spending to occur without safeguards or oversight.”
With union members demonstrating outside the administrative building in downtown San Francisco where the council held its meeting, court workers inside the council chambers also testified against the tech project.
“I am not only a court worker, I am a California taxpayer as well as a consumer of court services and believe me all three of us have been neglected,” said SEIU member Tim Lavorini who works in San Francisco Superior Court.
“Think about it, if this were your own PC and it still was not working as promised after so many years and each time you asked the manufacturer when it would be finally operable and he replied just give me a little more time and a lot more money, I think you would be outraged and insist on your money back.”
Any money saved, added Castro, should now go to the trial courts.
“We want all the available money to be distributed to the courts as soon as possible on a pro rata basis to help avoid further layoffs and potential court closures.”
After the labor representatives spoke against the project, representatives from lawyers groups came forward to speak in favor.
The president of the California State Bar, Jon Streeter, argued that California’s reputation for technology would suffer if the project was shut down.
“This is a system that is long overdue,” said Streeter. “Those of us who have practiced in other states know that we are falling behind. California will become, if this system is suspended or abandoned, one of the states that brings up the rear in terms of automation nationwide. We should not be in that position. We should be leading.”
After those two opposing groups spoke, council member David Rubin, a judge in San Diego and president of the California Judges Association, said his group supported termination of the project. At a CJA conference a few months ago, judges enthusiastically grabbed t-shirts imprinted with an image of a sinking Titanic and the letters CCMS emblazoned across the top.
“The budget forecast is bleak,” Rubin told the council. “We’re looking at cuts. Courts around the state have prepared for the worse and yet, it may not be good enough. Taking into account the front loading of costs to deployment to the first 11 courts, the cost to do so is staggering.”
After the vote terminating the project, the Alliance of California Judges, a reform-minded group of judges, expressed concern that court administrators would not in fact abandon the project. A similar vote to halt spending last summer to halt spending on the project for one year had no effect.
“Today’s action is only the first step and we remain concerned that the Judicial Council has not truly and completely abandoned this failed project,” said the statement from the Alliance.
“An investigation needs to be launched to determine whether the public is entitled to any reimbursement for the over $500 million that has been wasted. Furthermore, those responsible for this debacle must be identified and appropriate action taken so that the judicial branch is protected in the future.”
The huge technology project started in 2003 when the Administrative Office of the Courts signed a contract with Deloitte Consulting to develop a statewide civil case management system. Its proponents argued that it made sense to create a single, uniform system for all the courts. During the decade since the project started development, the going has been slow, and work on V4 didn’t start until 2010.
It all began to unravel when a legislative committee voted in 2010 to ask the state auditor to investigate. The auditor came back in February of last year with a damning report that blasted the project’s management and said the Administrative Office of the Courts has understated the cost of the project by hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Members of the Judicial Council opposed a legislative audit of CCMS in 2010,” said the Alliance statement. “Thankfully that audit occurred and we now know what a financial disaster this mismanaged project has cost the public:closed courtrooms, massive staff lay offs, and diminished service to those who seek redress through their courts.”
The decision to terminate the project also affects legislative debate over a bill to reform the way money is spent by the trial courts. A bill that passed the Assembly earlier this year, AB 1208, would limit the power of administrators in spending money on projects such as CCMS.
The Alliance and the labor unions for court workers have been pushing in favor of that legislation which currently lies quietly in the California Senate, awaiting action. In reacting to the defeat of the IT project, the Alliance pressed the case for the legislation.
“The lack of oversight and failed management of this project underscores the desperate need for reform of the courts governance structure. Our system works best with checks and balances. It fails when there exists only a blank check,” said the Alliance.
Earlier on Tuesday, a judge on the governing Judicial Council suggested the cost of the ambitious but bungled project could reach an astronomical $5 billion over the next ten years.
Over the course of the morning, a director from the Grant Thornton consulting firm calmly presented numbers for the Court Case Management System that soared into the hundreds of millions for software reviled by many in the very courts where early versions of the system are in place for not only its cost but its heavy labor demands.
By way of contrast, a big court system on the West Coast in Seattle’s King County Superior Court spent $4.7 million to complete and install a new IT system a little over a year ago. That system allows lawyers to file their papers over the internet, allowing them to bypass runners who charge to take paper documents to the court.
The most immediate question before California’s Judicial Council on Tuesday is whether to put that latest version of its home-grown CCMS, the one that allows electronic filing, into one small trial court, San Luis Obispo Superior Court. But that relatively small step starts a chain reaction of costs that winds up costing $700 million, according to the consultant commissioned by California’s court administrators.
“You’ve got around $231 million in one-time costs that will be required to deploy CCMS V4,” Grant Thornton consultant Graeme Finley told the council.
“That’s all new money that has to be arrived at. You also have continuing costs. That’s about $120 million. You then have continuing statewide costs. Some of that is new money, it’s also the cost of maintaining and operating [older versions] V2 and V3.”
“When you add that, and the $354 million, and the statewide continuing costs, about $475 million, about $231 million in one-time spending and there’s about $475 million dollars in total continuing costs and current system operations costs, V2 and V3 and CCMS V4. When you add all of that together. That’s the total amount of $706 million money that’s going to be spent on IT related costs between now and 2021.”
Judges on the council then began asking questions about those costs and whether there was a cheaper way to go.
Judge Rosenberg from Yolo County asked, “My court is about the same size as San Luis Obispo, Marin and Santa Cruz. You’re conclusion is that those courts are going to wind up spending something over $3 million over that 10-year period. I have checked with my staff at to the cost of alternative programs for my court, a full-on case management system that provides e-filing that exists right now. They’ve informed me that it will cost $500,000 to purchase it off the shelf, then about $80,000 a year.”
“So, if I figure that out over a 10-year period, that’s about $1.3 million,” Rosenberg continued. “That’s a big difference. Your number is two to one. So, if my number is correct, that changes the equation, does it not?”
Consultant Finley replied, “It would. I can’t comment on your estimate, I don’t know the facts behind it.”
Rosenberg continued his questioning,
The 10-year cost for CCMS for 11 [trial courts] is $1.2 billion, if I got that correct. Would it be fair to say that the cost over ten years for all 58 trial courts would be closer to $5 billion?”
The consultant also ducked that question.
“It’s easy to construct different scenarios and it would change the numbers, but we weren’t able to do that,” said Finley.
Judge David Rubin then took over.
“The base of the costs, you didn’t look or talk to anybody about specific pieces of software that might be cheaper than what this report said was out there?
“Right,” said Finley.
“OK,” said Rubin.
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Recall the Chief Justice.
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
From The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl Miller:
Council Kills State Court Computer Project
Cheryl Miller
Bowing to budget and political realities, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and colleagues vote to “wind down” the decade-long effort.
Full article is subscription access only: http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202547145759&Council_Kills_State_Court_Computer_Project&slreturn=1
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
Published today, Tuesday, March 27, from The Sacramento Bee, by Dan Walters:
California Judicial Council Halts Court Case Management System
Capping years of sometimes bitter controversy inside and outside the judicial system, the state Judicial Council voted Tuesday to halt deployment of what was to be a computerized case management system linking every California court in paperless operation.
The California Case Management System (CCMS) was the brainchild of former Chief Justice Ron George and more than a half-billion dollars has been spent so far, mostly on private consultants and vendors. But it’s come under increasingly sharp criticism by some judges, through the Alliance of California Judges, in the Legislature and by the state auditor.
The auditor had questioned how the money had been spent and an Assembly budget subcommittee voted recently to cut off funds for CMSS deployment.
The Alliance of California Judges, which said that the money had been squandered on an unworkable system while courts were being forced to close the doors due to sharp cuts in state court funds, was the big winner in Tuesday’s action.
Preliminary applications of the system have been tested, but a full and presumably final version was scheduled to be deployed soon in 11 counties, beginning with San Luis Obispo, but that would have added another $119.6 million to the cost over two years, the council was told.
A consultant told the council that over the long run, CCMS would save money as it reduced the need for more court personnel, but it also drew criticism from court workers and their unions, who said that jobs are being cut now as courts pare back their operations.
The Judicial Council, composed of trial and appellate judges and representatives of other judicial and legal groups and headed by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, was given three options. One was going ahead with deployment, the second pausing for a year and the third termination.
Members, meeting in San Francisco, debated them fiercely before finally agreeing to terminate but agreed to continue studying ways of using technology in court management, adapting what’s already been acquired during CCMS development.
The reason, obvious from the hours-long discussion, is the state’s uncertain fiscal situation. “We’re in a lot of trouble for two or three more years,” Alan Carlson, the Sonoma County court administrator, told his fellow council members.
The courts have been cut by $653 million in recent years and Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget continues reductions and threatens another $125 million cut if his tax plan is rejected by voters.
“I believe that 10 years ago, a case management system was a farsighted vision, but a statewide connected system is just not feasible in the current climate and in the foreseeable future,” Yolo County Judge David Rosenberg, a member of the council, declared. “It’s just too expensive.”
Fresno County Judge Kent Hamlin told the council that “the initial vision of a case management system…that would be operated in all courts and link them in real time is a failure. That vision needs to be abandoned.”
But Jon Streeter, representing the State Bar, countered that “Those of us who have practiced in other states know that we are falling behind. California will become, if this system is suspended or abandoned, one of the states that brings up the rear in terms of automation nationwide. We should not be in that position. We should be leading.”
Rosenberg moved for a complete shutdown that would allow individual courts to implement their own technology systems. However, his motion was defeated in favor of one by Santa Barbara Judge James Herman that stops deployment to the 11 counties, while urging judicial managers to explore uses of existing technology and authorizing up to $8.7 million to move in that direction.
in San Francisco, debated them fiercely before finally agreeing to terminate but agreed to continue studying ways of using technology in court management, adapting what’s already been acquired during CCMS development.
The reason, obvious from the hours-long discussion, is the state’s uncertain fiscal situation. “We’re in a lot of trouble for two or three more years,” Alan Carlson, the Sonoma County court administrator, told his fellow council members.
The courts have been cut by $653 million in recent years and Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget continues reductions and threatens another $125 million cut if his tax plan is rejected by voters.
“I believe that 10 years ago, a case management system was a farsighted vision, but a statewide connected system is just not feasible in the current climate and in the foreseeable future,” Yolo County Judge David Rosenberg, a member of the council, declared. “It’s just too expensive.”
Fresno County Judge Kent Hamlin told the council that “the initial vision of a case management system…that would be operated in all courts and link them in real time is a failure. That vision needs to be abandoned.”
But Jon Streeter, representing the State Bar, countered that “Those of us who have practiced in other states know that we are falling behind. California will become, if this system is suspended or abandoned, one of the states that brings up the rear in terms of automation nationwide. We should not be in that position. We should be leading.”
Rosenberg moved for a complete shutdown that would allow individual courts to implement their own technology systems. However, his motion was defeated in favor of one by Santa Barbara Judge James Herman that stops deployment to the 11 counties, while urging judicial managers to explore uses of existing technology and authorizing up to $8.7 million to move in that direction.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/03/california-udicial-council-halts-controversial-court-case-management-system.html#storylink=cpy
Long live the ACJ.
JusticeCalifornia
March 27, 2012
“The Alliance of California Judges, which said that the money had been squandered on an unworkable system while courts were being forced to close the doors due to sharp cuts in state court funds, was the big winner in Tuesday’s action.”
Imagine where the branch would be right now had the ACJ not stepped in to stop the $5 billion cj/jc/aoc spending binge. . .
Doan Trustum
March 27, 2012
Ditto that, Justice California. I am an ardent watcher of JCW, and I think all of you are due major kudos. Justice Cal, since I’m responding to your post, let me say that your understanting, whether innate or learned, of the inner workings of this branch are unfailingly accurate, in my opinion having been involved in it for over 30 years. I would like to thank you for all the work you have done over the past several years to help this day arrive.
Now, as to your observation, and that of ACJ, that vigilance is now absolutely necessary, I agree. I must say, sadly but truly, that I have very little trust for the Council, or most of its members, and NONE for those who run the AOC. They will use what wiggle room remains
(and thanks to Matthai and Herman there is plenty of it) to try to revive the beast in the form of a Frankenstein monster cobbled together from Deloitte’s leavings. They will then try to marry the monster to the unwilling bride, the trial courts.
Look, it’s like this: If the average kid asks his parents “Can I have a candy bar?” his folks say yes, thinking that he will go to the kitchen and eat one. When the AOC asked for its candy bar, they take the “yes” as permission to steal the family car and rob a liquor store to get the candy bar. Leopards and spots, you know.
Today was a great day, but believe it–there is much reason for concern. Watch carefully over the next few months. That will tell the tale.
Thanks to all of you.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
As a witness to Judicial Council and AOC tactics, up close and personal right at 455 Golden Gate Avenue, this can be said with certainty: Today was the response by the Chief Justice, the Judicial Council, and the AOC, to the action of the Assembly “informing” them on CCMS decisions. The Chief Justice will trumpet this action just long enough for Darrell Steinberg to do everything in his power to kill AB 1208 in the Senate. If he is successfull at that, then the Chief Justice, the Judicial Council (can someone please shut up Kim Turner and her heaving breathing over everything CCMS?), and the AOC will “leverage” CCMS, or some reguritated form of it, right back onto the trial courts. The Chief Justice will also use today’s action to justify asking for more money from the State Legislature in upcoming budget hearings at the State Capitol. The AOC is already drafting the “talking points.”
There must be a legislative correction to all of this, and only a legislative correction will fix it. Even now, the Office of the Chief Justice, the CCMS cheerleaders on the Judicial Council, and the AOC are “re-grouping” and devising strategies to go full force after their opponents. The coming months will evidence more retaliation.
What they just can’t accept at this point, is there is now more of “us” than there are of “them.”
Anybody have any ideas on how to get around Darrell Steinberg, and get AB 1208 moved to a hearing in the Senate?
And maybe it’s just me, but I heard alot of questions during today’s meeting from the Judicial Council that it seems should have been asked at least 5 years ago, at a minimum.
Recall the Chief Justice.
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
Also published today, Tuesday, March 27, from The San Francisco Chronicle, by Paul Elias Associated Press:
CA court leaders pull plug on $2B computer system
By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
California court leaders are stopping development of an ambitious computer project that was supposed to electronically connect courthouses in all 58 counties.
The California Judicial Council voted Tuesday to pull the plug on a controversial project was nearly 10 years in the making and was coming under increasing criticism for its rising cost.
The cost estimate to complete the project ballooned from $260 million in 2004 to $2 billion today.
Judicial Council member Judge James Herman says the branch will have spent about $556 million by the year’s end on the project. Officials already have rolled out the system in some counties.
Herman says the council felt the economic climate could not support spending any more money to complete deployment.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/27/state/n075854D23.DTL
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Recall the Chief Justice.
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
Also published today, Tuesday, March 27, from The San Jose Mercury News, by Howard Mintz:
California Courts scrap $2 billion Tech Project
By Howard Mintz
One of the largest public technology projects in California history is history.
Faced with mounting criticism about the cost, the state Judicial Council, the policy arm of the courts, on Tuesday voted to pull the plug on a $2 billion computer upgrade for California’s 58 trial courts.
The decision ended a 10-year quest to electronically unify the nation’s largest state court system, a goal that ballooned in price as California hit its worst budget crisis in years.
The council chose instead to give local courts the ability to choose their own tech improvements, setting aside $8.6 million to study that issue and perhaps salvage scraps from the abandoned project.
The controversial computer upgrade has divided a judicial branch trying to weather more than $600 million in budget cuts over the past three years. With courts cutting hours to the public and laying off workers, the tech upgrade became a primary target of critics who said judicial leaders should abandon the project and use the money to restore or maintain other court operations.
Hundreds of court employees from the Bay Area and elsewhere rallied outside the state building in San Francisco to press for an end to the tech project.
“It’s just not the right time to go forward with this project,” Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge James Herman, a council member who prepared a report on the upgrade, said after a nearly all-day hearing.
The Alliance of California Judges, a splinter group formed two years ago in part to assail the tech spending, called for an investigation into whether the courts can recover some of the money “wasted” on the now-abandoned project. California taxpayers have sunk more than $500 million into the project, which would have linked every court and convert their daily mountain of paper files to electronic data, among other things.
After the vote, Riverside-based appeals court Justice Douglas Miller, a council member who specialized in the project, rejected the argument that the money was wasted, saying the technology has been set up in five counties and provides the framework for much needed tech improvements elsewhere.
“I don’t think it came to an end because of the critics,” he said. “It came to an end because of economics.”
The council was faced with the choice of cutting the court system’s losses or pushing forward with a tech upgrade that was projected to save the branch tens of millions of dollars per year when completed later this decade.
Before reaching a decision, officials set out three options: move forward on an experimental basis in San Luis Obispo County; install the upgrade in 10 counties, including Alameda, Marin and Santa Cruz, and move statewide later; or scrap the project, leaving it to local courts to decide for themselves what new tech improvements they can afford.
The project was approved 10 years ago, when California was flush with cash and there was widespread support for upgrading trial courts’ antiquated computer systems. The new system was designed to replace the county-by-county computer programs that are unable to connect with each other or state agencies such as the Department of Justice, creating a unified electronic superhighway for all trial courts.
Known as “CCMS,” the tech upgrade, developed by Deloitte Consulting, would in theory speed up court operations, scrap old methods of gathering paper files and allow judges to check everything from criminal histories to child support records with the click of a mouse.
Courts around the state have been sharply divided over whether to continue. A number of Bay Area courts, notably San Mateo and San Francisco, have been outspoken critics, along with larger courts such as Los Angeles. And some past supporters in courts such as Santa Clara County have grown lukewarm about moving forward because of the dire budget outlook for the next several years.
A state audit last year blasted the project for mismanagement and ballooning costs. Another audit released last week did caution that courts across the state will still have to spend significant amounts of money to improve their technology, whether CCMS is used or not.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
And from The Los Angeles Times:
California’s Courts, Minus Computers
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
The Judicial Council was right to shelve the Court Case Management System. Perhaps the computer system can be revived in better economic times.
Imagine walking out of 2012 and into a courtroom from the pre-laptop era. Court clerks fill out dockets, then pull apart five carbon copies to hand to attorneys, who shake their heads in disgust and go back to their offices to re-enter the data in modern, usable formats. Hearings are delayed and frustrated plaintiffs, defendants and lawyers get back on the freeway after learning that the court’s official paper file has been misplaced and that there is no instantly retrievable digital version, so no possibility of proceeding. A social worker appears in Dependency Court seeking an order to protect a child, but the judge must wait two weeks to get a file from the next county because the family has moved and courts can’t send each other files at the click of a mouse, the way everyone in the real world can.
Or picture a criminal hearing at which paperless probation departments, feet planted firmly in the current decade, must revert to the past and print out their electronic reports so courts can physically place the paper versions in their files or scan or retype the data into the local court’s computer system because the court can’t receive reports electronically. Probation, parole, mental health, police, sheriff, corrections, out-of-state courts — they are linked and can instantaneously share information with one another, but not with a trial court in California. And trial courts can’t share information among themselves.
Domestic violence protective orders, instead of being automatically distributed to all courtrooms in real time, must make their way around the state via unlinked legacy systems, by email or by paper file, and judges as a consequence often are clueless about whether people appearing before them are dangerous — or in danger. Lawyers can’t track the progress of their cases through courts around the state without phone calls or costly court visits. They must send messengers to file documents and law students to check on motions. Prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers must create their own systems to keep a case on track because they can’t trust the court to have the latest motion, report or exhibit at the judge’s fingertips. While outside the courthouse private lawyers send one another files, motions, objections and bills from their smartphones, inside the building workers push file carts down corridors as if they were playing a scene from “Mad Men.”
Imagine the costs to the courts, the costs to the lawyers and, above all, the mounting costs to the average Californian who can’t sit down at his or her computer and get the most basic information about his or her case.
That’s the dismal state of technology — the dismal state of public service — in many California courts today due to years of neglect and what appears to be a discomfort among many judges and court workers with modern communication and data software. Even judges with systems that work are unconnected to other courts and justice agencies.
Now add to that the complications created by the state’s budget shortfalls. Imagine that same frustrated Californian waiting in line for five hours to get a hearing on a traffic case because court personnel were laid off and traffic cases are at the bottom of the priority list. Or imagine learning that the hearing has been set for nearly a year from now because courtrooms have closed and that’s the earliest date one is available. Even without the dangers created by courts that can’t communicate, a domestic violence victim is endangered because she has to wait days, perhaps weeks, just to get before a judge. Forget courthouses being able to get data on their laptops; Californians are finding it difficult to get court personnel on the phone because budget cuts have forced phone lines to go unmonitored for much of the day.
On Tuesday, California’s Judicial Council — the leaders of the state’s trial and appellate courts — voted to pull the plug on a statewide computer system that was designed to finally bring courts into the 21st century. There was very little choice: What would be the point in creating technologically competent courtrooms with shuttered doors? The council was right to shelve the Court Case Management System, use the funding to keep courts in operation and hope to salvage the system for use, or rebirth, or spare parts, in better economic times.
Some trial judges and court employee unions may be prone to see such a move as a great victory. If the judges view themselves as a rebel alliance and the Judicial Council as a heavy-handed evil empire, then the computer system they have long criticized is the Death Star — too costly, completely unnecessary and a symbol of the centralizing power wielded by the council at the expense of independent judges and superior courts.
They’re wrong. The abandonment of the case management system is a barely tolerable defeat — not for one side or the other in some obscure struggle for control between local trial courts and central administration, but for Californians who are entitled to, and have been paying for, a judicial system that serves their needs with modern facilities and accessible, up-to-date technology.
As it is, the great recession and the resulting budget crisis — and not some imagined mismanagement by the Judicial Council or its staff — have made it untenable to proceed for now with the case management system. And not proceeding now may well mean never proceeding because contractors cannot be put in suspended animation until finances improve. And that is a disaster because in courts (such as the Orange County Superior Court) in which early versions of the system are in place, the savings are impressive — as are the benefits to litigants, lawyers, prosecutors, the accused and others who count on a competent legal system. Similar savings to other courts, and similar benefits to other members of the public, are receding. The courts must ensure that when the economy improves and they once again try to enter the modern era, they have not just the technology but the sense of mission to get the job done.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
And published early this evening, also from Courthouse News Service:
Labor Puts Shoulder Into Push to Stop CCMS
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) In a battle that goes back into history, labor representatives were in the front ranks of those fighting against an IT project that has devoured hundreds of millions of dollars while court workers are laid off for lack of funds.
In testimony before the Judicial Council Tuesday, a court clerk from San Francisco drew an analogy between an every-day personal computer and the Court Case Management System that has cost California a half-billion dollars.
“I am not only a court worker, I am a California taxpayer as well as a consumer of court services and believe me all three of us have been neglected,” said Tim Lavorini who works in San Francisco Superior Court and is a member of the Service Employees International Union.
“Think about it,” he said, “if this were your own PC and it still was not working as promised after so many years and each time you asked the manufacturer when it would be finally operable and he replied just give me a little more time and a lot more money, I think you would be outraged and insist on your money back.”
“Californians want our money back,” said Lavorini.
The conflict between labor unions in California’s courts and the bureaucrats of the Administrative Office of the Courts has a long history. Labor unions supported an initiative that consolidated California’s municipal courts and superior courts more than a decade ago. One effect of that consolidation was to create stronger and more cohesive labor representation for court workers.
A reaction from the administrators, according to independent observors, was to commission the IT project that would ultimately allow lawyers to file their legal documents via the Internet.
A key aspect of that electronic system is that it requires the lawyers to fill out docket information ahead of time, a task handled by court workers when documents are filed in paper form.
A similar transition in federal courts has decimated the ranks of public employees who had steady jobs with good benefits.
In federal court in Los Angeles, for example, the area where intake and docketing clerks used to work is like a ghost office, with gray desks and matt partitions all lined up and in place, but without any workers. Those jobs have been replaced with fewer but much higher paid technical jobs that rely on a different set of technologicial skills.
The trade-off in terms of public funds is generally a wash, federal court clerks have said, with a large number of lower-paid jobs replaced by a smaller number of higher-paid jobs that require a “different skill set.”
In their statements to the Judicial Council on Tuesday, union representatives attacked the administrators’ undertaking as a foolish waste of funds and a destroyer of good jobs.
“The simple truth is that the majority of the courts does not want this system,” said Karen Norwood with the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees. “To continue to pour millions and millions of dollars into a system that its own judges have rejected can only be described as hubris.”
“How can this body justify spending money on technology when the courtrooms that would use it are locking their doors and our justice system is being crumbled into ruins because there isn’t enough court staff to do the work.
Gwendolyn Jones, president of the AFSCME said, “People’s lives are on hold because the courts no longer have the resources to operate properly. Currently in Los Angeles it takes 16 weeks to get an initial custody hearing.”
“That’s four months that parents have no legal recourse to see and protect their children during a custody battle,” she said. “Do you think those parents care what computer system we’re using? People need to be our priority, not technology It is time to admit that CCMS is out of control and be responsible and strong enough to cut our losses.”
Guest
March 27, 2012
Does anyone have a recording of last year’s legislative hearing on the CCMS audit? We need to list all the court leaders who spoke on behalf of CCMS. I remember Roddy being a major advocate of CCMS from the beginning. It is interesting that the CJA president is from San Diego and spoke in support of killing CCMS. I thought Roddy ran that court? Maybe Roddy needs the AOC Director job.
JusticeCalifornia
March 27, 2012
Yes and maybe our brilliant cj will select Kim Turner to be the assistant AOC director.
If Judge Rosenberg can outfit his Marin-size court with a CMS with e-filing capability for an initial investment of $500K, and then $80K per year, why and how the heck has CCMS committee member/jc member/CCMS cheerleader Kim Turner supposedly been spending $2 million A YEAR on Marin’s bare-bones system, which won’t even allow you to get a register of actions online? Where have those millions gone, each year? Maybe when the investigation of the CCMS debacle is done, they will send the investigators across the Bay to pay a little visit to Kim Turner and ask her about that. . . .
Although Marin is suing Deloitte, Turner was fairly chomping at the bit today, breathlessly asking who would take SLO’s place if they got a new non-CCMS system and so wouldn’t be the pilot V-4 court. . . .
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
The recording, and the video, should be archived over at the State Legislature, probably in the Cal Channel archives.
anna
March 28, 2012
Roddy is behind using the CCMS for judges, and their “clerks” to destroy and delete the documents they don’t like. That SOB belongs in jail. Roddy, thinks he is a lawyer, and even tells the judges what to do, They obey him like blind sheep. San Diego is one of the most corrupt counties in the state. Kudos to the judges from there who took on the AOC and the JC. They are heros in my book. Huffman, McConnell, SO, Enright all hail from San Diego. Nuff said!!!
JusticeCalifornia
March 27, 2012
My hat is off to the union members who stepped up to stop the CCMS debacle.
And everyone else who fought this battle.
unionman575
March 27, 2012
Thanks Justice and thank you everyone on here!
wearyant
March 28, 2012
Yes, JusticeCalifornia, if I wore a hat, I’d throw it in the air as high as I could in respect for the union members who were pounding the pavement as the debate on the debacle continued inside. I wondered if Unionman575 was there as he was MIA here … 😉
One Who Knows
March 28, 2012
The union members that were rallying outside of the Judicial Council offices were interpreters represented by the Communications Workers of America, the court reporters represented by IFPTE 21 and the clerks represented by SEIU.
Lando
March 27, 2012
Today turned about to be a very good day for the California taxpayer. Hopefully it will turn out to be a good day for the trial courts and their employees. Thanks J Wesley for having the courage for being the only JC member to vote to terminate CCMS and allow the local courts to develop their own software programs. We should be happy somewhat that the JC voted to end CCMS but they can’t let go as evidenced by their spending another 8+ million to “salvage” portions of the system. This also gives them the opportunity to try and force their views of “appropriate” software systems including future modifications of CCMS on the local trial courts. All should pause and be concerned about the many people including chief CCMS cheerleader J Bruiners and many other Council members like J Miller and J Hull that claim CCMS works. This level of denial can’t be good for the governance structure of the branch or the disposition of funds that should now go to the trial courts .
unionman575
March 27, 2012
We need to ride their ass! NO salvage money at all!
anna
March 28, 2012
Unionman, Wendy and Doan Trustum [love that name],
The only thing they want to salvage is their sorry little behinds from going to jail!!!
Allocating funds to “determine” if anything is “salvageable” is nothing more than a feint, and an attempt to gain time to cover their tracks [money trail] if, and when, an investigation is done.
Otherwise, they will have no excuse as to why half a billion dollars disappeared. If they could point to something of “value”, they might be able to escape jail time for theft, graft and corruption, not to mention HRH the First avoiding a big black eye on his “legacy”.
CCMS was nothing more to these people than a “money tree” they thought they could go out and pick from whenever they want to live the high life.
The thing they’re terrified of, is answering questions under oath and in the daylight.
The stink this will put on these people could bring down the entire AOC and the JC not to mention the reigns of HRH 1 and 2. [and expose them for the disgrace they are] Not to mention exonerating the lives of the people they ruined.
No, an investigation is more important than ever.
However, they will use the LA times and anyone they can get to write articles like the one Wendy exposed here to divert the issue away from corruption.
Only those who have no knowledge of law or how these two “judicial branches” work, would buy this crap.
It’s too frightening for most people to think that this type of corruption is going on at the top level of our judiciary. That was what HRH the 1st was and is banking on. His hatred of ‘bloggers” is that all of this is exposed. Prior to this, people just thought it was only happening to them. This was a place to show just how widespread and power hungry these cretins were.
As Doan Trustum suggested, now the cover-up is starting in earnest, and that’s where this attempt to “determine” if anything is “salvageable” is going. They will try to rewrite their books, not to mention history.
An investigation is now more important than ever.
anna
March 28, 2012
Sorry for the left out commas. You guys are great.
Now, that everyone “think’s” CCMS is dead, these people know that there is a lot of “splain’in to do” as Ricky Ricardo used to say.
Wendy Darling
March 27, 2012
And from our beloved predecessor, the original, the AOC Watcher:
Judicial Council Pulls Plug on CCMS…My Work Here Is Done
Posted on March 27, 2012 | Leave a comment
In a stunning turnabout from the position that the Judicial Council has regularly taken regarding CCMS, today the judicial members of the Judicial Council voted to halt implementation of the much maligned and criticized CCMS software program.
From the Courthouse News Service:
Ultimately, the council found the courts as a whole could no longer afford to support the project and decided to allocate $8.6 million to shelve the Court Case Management system and salvage any useful technology from it, including the ability for lawyers to file documents online.
In other words, the JC is mothballing the project and they’re suggesting that courts pick through the scrapheap to see if anything worthwhile can be salvaged from it. Oh my how the mighty have fallen.
But I come here today not to bury CCMS, and certainly not to praise it, but to remind everyone that CCMS cost California almost $500 million in the middle of the Great Recession with county courts shutting down courtrooms and courthouses, and layoffs sweeping the land. Is it any wonder that the JC finally got a clue? Even if it was two and a half years later?
I tip my hat to the original followers of Thetis from the AOC who let me know what was going on with CCMS back in 2009. And I salute the Alliance of California Judges for leading the fight against CCMS. And what can I say about Judicial Council Watcher? Those folks took an idea and made it better. While I got stopped blogging due to life commitments, they soldiered on creating a website that I encourage all to visit.
And as for me, although I know there are many more court-related issues that people are still waging battles over, (I’m looking at you AB1208) I am officially pulling the plug on this great venture I started almost three years ago. I wish everyone the best of luck and again, I encourage everyone to visit the Judicial Council Watcher.
Maybe I’ll see you around there in the comments section.
unionman575
March 27, 2012
I loved the AOC Watcher too Wendy.
JusticeCalifornia
March 28, 2012
ditto.
I vividly remember attending a JC meeting–I believe it was 12/2009. ron george peevishly mentioned “bloggers in jammies”. . .referring to AOC Watcher.
Six or seven months later george “unexpectedly” resigned.
Never underestimate the power of bloggers in jammies. . . .
AOC Watcher, in calling out “King” george, stripped george of his intimidating veneer and made it OK to publicly speak the truth.
Thank you AOC Watcher.
And thank you JCW for picking up the baton.
unionman575
March 28, 2012
Yes never underestimate the power of bloggers.
=)
One Who Knows
March 28, 2012
Many of us deeply appreciate what AOC Watcher started. I enjoyed AOCW’S last post and was amused by the Ides of March reference and the loose reference from Mark Antony’s soliloquy about Brutus and CCMS. Clever!
JusticeCalifornia
March 27, 2012
Re CCMS “working”:
Yugos “worked”– for heaven’s sake if they didn’t the buyers couldn’t have
driven out of the sales lot.
My retired 2005 computer “works” — precariously, and very slowly, and if
you restart it frequently, and don’t try to do too many things at once, and
keep the computer guy on speed dial. Yes, it’s true I bought a replacement
blazing fast new computer for a small fraction of what I paid for that old
thing. . . . .but damn it, that old thing “works”!
We know CCMS “works” too because otherwise that nice trial court clerk who
spoke during public comment time after the last CCMS hearing wouldn’t have
been able to say CCMS is way slower than her court’s old case management
system which they still use and prefer. If CCMS didn’t “work” she couldn’t
have compared it. . ..
JusticeCalifornia
March 27, 2012
don’t know why the above formatted like that. . .sorry!
unionman575
March 27, 2012
It’s a pile of shit that wasted over 500 mil of our trial courtt money.
It’s time for a Recall. Can you hear us now Tani? Someone has to be held accountable at the top and it’s you babe!
1.2 million signatures….puts you on the ballot.
wearyant
March 28, 2012
JusticeCalifornia, thanks for posting the above re: “works.” I’ve been wondering what the cj/jc/aoc meant when this sudden revelation came forward that CCMS “works.” Totally nonplussed about that. Yet another flavor or version offered up of — the truth.
unionman575
March 28, 2012
It ain’t dead 100% yet folks see the “official” press release from Pravda (oops the AOC)……
I am going to switch from my usual barf bucket to a Recall Clipboard.
http://www.courts.ca.gov/17397.htm
Mar 27, 2012
Judicial Council Votes to Stop Deployment of Statewide Case Management System
Cites fiscal crisis, high cost of CCMS V4
SAN FRANCISCO—At a special session today, the Judicial Council voted to stop deployment of the California Court Case Management System (CCMS) as a statewide solution for the case management needs of the trial courts. Instead, the council directed the council’s CCMS Internal Committee, in partnership with the trial courts, to develop timelines and recommendations to the Judicial Council to find other ways to use the CCMS technology and the state’s investment in the software system, as well as develop new strategies to assist courts with failing case management systems.
“What we do best in the judicial branch is to weigh the evidence and make reasoned and deliberate decisions,” said Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye. “The council’s decision to stop deployment of CCMS was responsible and prudent in view of our budget situation and the facts we gathered on the actual costs of deployment. CCMS works. Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to deploy it.”
The council also directed the CCMS Internal Committee, in partnership with the trial courts, to develop timelines and recommendations to the Judicial Council for providing technology solutions to improve efficiencies in court operations by maximizing the value of document managements systems, e-filing capabilities, and e-delivery services for the benefit of litigants, attorneys, justice branch partners, and the public.
The committee also was directed to establish a technology governance structure to best serve the implementation of technology solutions, and develop alternatives for the Superior Court of San Luis Obispo and other trial courts that have failing case management systems and critical case management needs.
“We have to develop a new vision for our branch technology infrastructure given our fiscal climate,” said Judge James E. Herman, chair of the committee. “We are committed to implementing a cost-effective, efficient technology that serves the public, litigants, attorneys, and trial courts.”
According to a report by the independent auditing firm of Grant Thornton, LLP, estimates for deployment of CCMS V4 to 11 courts would be $343 million for one-time and supporting costs through fiscal year 2020-2021. To date, $333.3 million has been spent on the V3 and V4 software product the Judicial Council now owns.
In the current fiscal year, state funding of the trial courts was slashed by $350 million and another $310 million was swept from the courthouse construction fund to help balance the state’s General Fund. Since 2008-2009, state funding of the judicial branch has been cut by $653 million, leading to closures of courtrooms, reduced hours, and employee layoffs.
Originally conceived in 2001, CCMS was designed to provide the trial courts with a single, statewide case management system to replace 70 individual case systems in use among the California courts. The concept was to improve public safety and business efficiencies by enabling trial courts to exchange information with each other as well as other justice system partners, such as law enforcement and to improve service to attorneys and the public.
Interim systems provided case management for criminal and traffic cases (V2) followed by civil, small claims, probate and mental health cases (V3). V4 could handle all case types, provide for data exchange, and provide public access to cases across the state.
At the meeting, the council agreed to continue supporting the operation and maintenance of CCMS V2 and V3 already in use in seven trial courts: Fresno, Sacramento, Orange, Los Angeles, San Diego, Ventura, and San Joaquin. Twenty-five percent of all civil filings in the state are currently processed using CCMS V3.
The CCMS Internal Committee and the AOC also notified the Judicial Council that the cost reimbursement that was negotiated with Deloitte Consulting, LLP, the primary vendor used in the development of CCMS, following delays in the project, would be in the form of a payment of $16 million.
versal-versal
March 28, 2012
The Judicial Council meeting today is Exhibit 1 in the case for ending this insular anti-democratic governance structure. “CCMS works. CCMS was visionary. CCMS was not a waste of taxpayer money”. Thanks Justice Miller, Justice Hull and longtime CCMS shill, Justice Bruiners. Equally troubling is that all staff who have worked on CCMS were lauded. Perhaps some of those visionaries who wasted over half a billion dollars of taxpayer money should have buildings and floors of the crystal palace named after them . Oh I forgot that has already happened. On to CCMS versions 5, 6 and 7.
Lando
March 28, 2012
Thanks everyone here for all you did to help end the CCMS mess. On to the recall of Tani. I have my clipboard I found in the garage ready to go . Who wants to start walking ?
Wendy Darling
March 28, 2012
I’m ready. Ask JCW for my contact info, and get in touch. I already a clipboard, and a comfortable pair of tennis shoes. Let’s get busy.
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
March 28, 2012
Let’s get the Recall fired up.
1.2 million signatures and you are on the ballot Tani!
wearyant
March 28, 2012
The cj leaves us no choice but to starting walkin’ with clipboards.
Wendy Darling
March 28, 2012
Published today, Wednesday, March 28, from The Metropolitan News Enterprise:
Judicial Council Unanimously Votes to Stop CCMS Deployment
From Staff and Wire Service Reports
The Judicial Council of California yesterday pulled the plug on its ambitious computer project, which was intended to electronically connect every courthouse in the state but cost taxpayers more than $500 million.
The council voted unanimously to immediately halt funding the California Case Management System, a project that was nearly 10 years in the making. Members blamed the bleak economic climate in California, saying the project is economically unsustainable while court operating budgets are being slashed.
The project was the subject of a scathing state audit and vocal criticism from a growing number of trial court judges, in particular the leadership of the Los Angeles Superior Court. Criticism became increasingly vocal as initial cost estimates ballooned from $260 million in 2004 to $2 billion today.
All-Day Meeting
The council, following an all-day meeting in San Francisco, voted to spend $8.6 million to install what can still be salvaged from the failed project. “We need to spend that to know what our options are,” said Santa Barbara Judge James Herman, a member of the council and chairman of its CCMS Internal Committee.
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in a statement:
“What we do best in the judicial branch is to weigh the evidence and make reasoned and deliberate decisions,” said Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye. “The council’s decision to stop deployment of CCMS was responsible and prudent in view of our budget situation and the facts we gathered on the actual costs of deployment. CCMS works. Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to deploy it.”
Interim Products
Fourth District Court of Appeal Justice Douglas P. Miller, chair of the council’s Executive and Planning Committee, said in an e-mail to judicial officers and court administrators, a copy of which was obtained by the MetNews, that the council would “continue supporting the operation and maintenance of [interim CCMS products being used in seven trial courts] and work to assist other courts with failing systems.”
Scrapping CCMS is not the end of the vision of now-retired Chief Justice Ronald M. George and others for a statewide approach to courtroom technology, Miller said.
“As significant as the decision is to end CCMS, in my view the more important decision coming out of the council meeting today is the council’s direction to develop a new branch technology vision and roadmap,” the justice wrote. He told recipients of his e-mail that Herman “will be holding meetings and soliciting your ideas for bringing California’s courts into the digital age” and said he hoped that those on both sides of the CCMS debate “will contribute to creating a new plan for statewide court technology.”
The project was scrapped after only six of California’s 58 counties received significant upgrades.
The Alliance of California Judges, which claims more than 200 members and was created because of the growing frustration over the system’s costs, called for an investigation into the $560 million already spent on the project.
Sacramento Superior Court Maryanne Gillyard, a director of the alliance, said her group was worried that the council “has not truly and completely abandoned this failed project.”
She said the cost overruns occurred because proponents had been given a blank check instead of being accountable, and that “those responsible for this debacle must be identified and appropriate action taken.”
Unfulfilled Vision
As initially envisioned a decade ago, anyone in any county could access real-time information on just about any case anywhere in the state. Lawyers would have been able to file court papers electronically and state Department of Justice officials and other law enforcement agencies could determine with a few keystrokes whether suspects in custody in one county had other restraining orders, warrants or other outstanding court actions pending against them.
The project was supposed to be the crowning achievement of George’s quest to drag the nation’s largest court system into the 21st century.
George retired at the beginning of last year, and the state’s computer court system remains a virtual Tower of Babel. The 58 counties still use a combined 70 computer systems to help mete out and keep track of justice in California, advocates of CCMS noted.
Miller said the project was scrapped “not because of the critics but because of the economic structure.” Herman said the council felt the economic climate could not support spending any more money to complete deployment.
Long live the ACJ.
One Who Knows
March 28, 2012
Herman said the council felt the economic climate could not support spending anymore money to complete deployment.
It wasn’t the economic climate that couldn’t support future spending – it was the political climate. They were forced by cold hard politics and the economy was just an excuse. Let’s be honest the economy has been suffering for years now and they didn’t take one step to try and do the right thing until the politics forced them between a rock and a hard place. They were also hoping that their actions would ease some of the pressure regarding 208. But everyone in the capitol knew this has been coming for weeks. So they did nothing except what people felt they should have done a year ago when they told the Legislature that they would stop CCMS spending and only support the only early adopters. But, instead they cast their middle finger up at the Legislature and the public and spent millions of trial court funds to develop CCMS. And guess what? The Legislature hasn’t forgotten that F- you by the JC, CJ and AOC.
Everyone should take a victory lap for creating the politics to get them to start making some better decisions. And then go back to upping the pressure. A battle has been won but it is a long war…..
Wendy Darling
March 28, 2012
Published today, Wednesday, March 27, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Tense Bout Undercard at Council Meeting
By MARIA DINZEO
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – While deliberations over a massive court IT system dominated Tuesday’s Judicial Council meeting, the fear of next year’s shrunken budget drove an earlier confrontation between a judge from Los Angeles and the chief lobbyist for the Administrative Office of the Courts.
After three years of cumulative slashing of the overall court budget in California, the trial courts are now putting in place radical plans to cut operations to the core, laying workers off and closing some courtrooms. The big push from the chief justice, the administrators and their lobbyists has been to convince the Legislature and the governor to restore $100 million to the court budget that goes into effect at the end of June.
The title match at Tuesday’s Judicial Council meeting was the decision to terminate an IT project that has drained a half-billion from court coffers over the last ten years. But before that discussion, there was a sharp exchange between Los Angeles judge David Wesley and chief AOC lobbyist Curt Child.
“The signals have not been overly positive that we are going to see that $100 million restoration,” said Child, speaking in a monotone. “However, as we have in past years, we will continue to make sure that the Legislature and the governor understands the impact and the importance of getting to that restoration.”
Wesley jumped in, “I was up in Sacramento when you were up there talking to the legislators, and when you say they were not overly positive, I would say they were overly negative. We’re not going to get $100 million from the Legislature and nobody believes we are. So what is plan B?”
Underlying the question over funding is the matter of who controls how the cuts are distributed, assuming the $100 million is not forthcoming.
Los Angeles and some other trial courts have pushed hard to have all of the money allocated by the Legislature for the trial courts in fact sent to the trial courts, rather than seeing a big portion siphoned off by the administrators and the council for other projects, such as the extraordinarily expensive and now doomed IT project.
Los Angeles with 10 million residents and some 400 judges is the biggest court in the nation and faces a loss of 300 jobs and the closure of 50 courtrooms. Its judges would strongly prefer to control their own destiny rather than see the council sitting above them dole out the funds and the cuts as it sees fit.
“I think what is crucial as an important component in our discussions that we’re having is that in fact this body be given the discretion to make the determinations, how to best allocate the reductions,” said Child. “So what we plan — Judge Wesley — is to vigorously advocate that the council have that discretion. I would anticipate that every fund that the council oversees would be on the table for discussions about being used as a possible solution for the reductions.”
Wesley shot back in a raised voice, “They’re not going to give us a $100 million dollars and everybody around this table knows that!
With that final challenge, discussion switched to the main act, the Court Case Management System.
AOC Finance Director Zlatko Theodorovic admitted there was no money to continue the IT system that has been in development for ten years and cost a half-billion dollars, only to be rejected by major trial courts.
Zlatko said succinctly, “It’s a difficult task to find the funds.”
Justice Harry Hull mused, “CCMS was a worthy goal, but one not ultimately achieved given the recession and the legislature’s determination as to how much money would be available to the judicial branch during that recession.”
In a final comment before the fatal vote, Judge Erica Yew of Santa Clara eulogized the IT project.
“We are here really at the benefit of many, many peoples’ work, their time, their energy, their hopes, their dreams,” she said. “Whatever we do today, I hope we don’t lose sight of the contributions that we will benefit from in our future, then we can take a moment to think all that we’ve done collectively because I think we deserve to pat ourselves on the back.”
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Recall the Chief Justice.
Long live the ACJ.
Come Again?
March 28, 2012
Judge Yew. What PLANET is she from!?!? “Pat ourselves on the back”?!?!
Oh my. It will take more than AB 1208 to set this ship on a proper course.
anna
March 28, 2012
Judge Yew… what a dope! Wonder how she ever made it out of law school. let alone an advocate in a court room.
wearyant
March 28, 2012
Maria, YOU ROCK!
JusticeCalifornia
March 28, 2012
Agreed.
Wendy Darling
March 28, 2012
The latest installment of The Empress’ New Clothes, and the quote of the day:
“We deserve to pat ourselves on the back.” You just can’t make this stuff up. Really.
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
March 28, 2012
Forget the pat on the back …Time to kick a field goal!
unionman575
March 28, 2012
http://www.courts.ca.gov/jcmeetings.htm
Next Judicial Council Meetings:
Monday April 23, and
Tuesday April 24
Wednesday June 20,
Thursday June 21, and
Friday June 22
Friday July 27
Thursday August 30, and
Friday August 31
Thursday October 25, and
Friday October 26
Thursday December 13, and
Friday December 14
unionman575
March 28, 2012
The early adopter never WANTED CCMS…
http://calcoastnews.com/2012/03/judges-in-san-luis-obispo-oppose-money-sucking-it-system/
Judges in San Luis Obispo oppose money-sucking IT system
March 28, 2012
San Luis Obispo County’s trial court has become the focus of the battle of whether to abandon a costly statewide case management system. [CourthouseNewsService]
An audit of the project to install a California case management system (CCMS), resulted in criticism from judges questioning how the initial cost estimates swelled from $260 million in 2004 to $2 billion today.
On Tuesday, while California judges on the judicial council deliberated on the IT system’s fate, San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Jeff Burke told Courthouse News the administrative office of the courts is wasting money trying to keep the project alive when it should be channeling all possible funds toward keeping courthouses open.
“The reason that they’re closing these courthouses is because of the diversion of hundreds of millions to CCMS. There are hundreds of millions more that will be spent on this system that could be spent on court operations,” Burke said.
Officials with the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) contend the current computer system in San Luis Obispo is failing and desperately needs the California case management
system.
“We have an old DOS based system that they’ve been eager to replace for quite a while. It is old and creaky. I don’t think it’s a critical need,”
Burke countered to Courthouse News. “The need I perceive the court has is maintaining the employees that are here now and not on this Ferrari computer system, to keep court services in tact. If it gets worse, we will be laying people off. I think that’s a shame.”
Burke said that several years ago, his court looked into replacing its computer system with an off-the-shelf product, but the AOC put a stop to it.
“Years ago we had a contract with a company in Texas for a case management system,” he said. “The AOC put the breaks on it. They said, ‘no, we’re building our own system.’”
While the council discussed the project at the courthouse in San Luis Obispo, Judge Burke told Courthouse News his court is divided on its support of proposed IT system.
JusticeCalifornia
March 28, 2012
To put things in perspective, over 16 courts could get the $500K off-the-shelf CMS with e-filing capabilities described by Judge Rosenberg for the amount of money the JC just approved to mothball and “study” how to “leverage” CCMS technology.
Trial courts, justice partners, and the public have “top leadership” and CCMS to thank for robbing the trial courts in the name of CCMS, while saddling them with “old and creaky” CMS systems that would and could have been replaced years ago, when the economic climate was brighter. For years “top leadership” has been lying, promising, and not delivering, while throwing money away, hand over fist, on CCMS. Go figure. . . .
And then of course there are the obscenely expensive courthouse building and maintenance issues. . . .
ummmm……how much is enough before we get state and federal criminal investigations?
Judge Burke is to be commended for speaking out and setting the record straight.
unionman575
March 28, 2012
“ummmm……how much is enough before we get state and federal criminal investigations?”
I have had enough.
ummmm……how much is enough before we a Recall started?
Lando
March 29, 2012
The recall is just around the corner. This last disgraceful JC meeting says it all. There is no new JC. There is no transformation. J Hull insulted a huge number of Judges ,members of the legislature, caring branch employees and citizens when he made his closing comments about CCMS. This Chief can make all the pronouncements she wants. Nothing has changed. So everyone, put those buckets down and grab a clipboard. We are ready to roll on the Chief Justice’s recall.
Wendy Darling
March 29, 2012
I’ve got my clipboard, lots of pens, and a comfortable pair of tennis shoes. Let’s get busy.
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
March 30, 2012
Let’s do it. Recall Tan!