Yesterday, Steven Jahr released a sky is falling letter indicating that the governor was going back on his word and is cutting 200 million out of the judicial branch budget by sequestering reserves a year early. Jahr released this letter to judicial branch leaders statewide in an effort to motivate everyone into pleading for no more cuts to reserves or judicial branch funding before the governor releases his budget to the legislature.
Yet we can all plainly see what has been and continues to happen at the top. Before the AOC completes their reorganization three years of studies will have passed, thousands of court employees will have lost their jobs, dozens of courthouses across the state will have been shut down and services to the public will be curtailed throughout the California courts. Meanwhile, the AOC’s workload and compensation study seems to have already resulted in some raises for AOC’s senior management after 35 layoffs of personnel just so they can say they had layoffs as well. Some of the cuts made were made in the areas of highly visible personnel in the AOC’s ministry of truth and enlightenment while all of the others were from the lowest levels of the agency.
We respectfully submit that they cut those personnel so that they could use their salaries to give management raises without increasing their overall personnel costs.
By every account submitted to us from AOC personnel across all divisions, management continues to grow even as the number of line workers shrinks.
The true costs of the Long Beach courthouse were not known to most of us that work in the judicial branch because the AOC did not disclose those costs to anyone other than the department of finance and only then, they released those costs in an effort to get a budget change proposal pushed through to cover their proverbial asses and to cover Meridiam Infrastructures bad bet. Only after DOF says don’t count on those funds materializing does the central politburo come back to the courts with a no money, no honey message about further courthouse construction cuts.
There was a political message there as well. However that political message will not be carried by the AOC or court leaders. That announcement was made to get Bob Balgenorth and friends in the Building & Construction Trades Council to feverishly lobby legislators to cover up the AOC’s colossal long beach gamble by funding the project and pushing through with the other courthouse builds.
Food for thought: If the AOC is forced to walk away from the Long Beach debacle that they created, then Long Beach becomes a two billion dollar shopping center or the partnership will be driven into bankruptcy where that property could be picked up for a song. The trades workers have already been paid so there is no loss of jobs to the BCTC membership. Walk away and all of the other courthouses will be protected and down the road the courts will get a better deal on that building. Additionally, Long Beach zoning restrictions could put a damper on using that property for anything but a courthouse, forcing long beach justice partners back to the negotiating table to cut a better deal for the state or risk bankruptcy.
We find it curious that the amount of proposed budget cut is about equal to the AOC’s annual budget. Think for a moment on how the other two branches of government might wish to address the continued two billion dollar boondoggles produced by the AOC that continue to be overlooked by a judicial council – the same judicial council that pledged oversight over their rogue administrative offices. The same judicial council that gives lip service to transparency and accountability time and time again. They might direct a 200 million dollar budget cut at the AOC for the purposes of forcing the Judicial Council to clean house and to start over with a new slate.
And how might the central politburo react to such news? By telling the trial courts it will be their budgets and that their reserves are being swept a year early. With that nifty new ethics opinion that cautions you against advocating for courts over construction, you’re forced to back the central politburo.
Even those in Sacramento are saying that this “news” is a bit premature about the sweeping of funds but Christmas is the season for budgetary politics.
It has been an extremely difficult process to send a message from the legislature and the executive offices of the State of California to those in the third branch who don’t appear to be listening. Even the third branch rank and file and a majority of this states judges smell something foul coming out of San Francisco and have grown weary of being guilty by association with the AOC’s self-inflicted boondoggles.
The question is: Are you ready to demand change from your elected representatives yet?
Have you grown weary yet of the Judicial Council and the AOC perpetually buying time with study after study in the hope that you’ll give up or forget that they keep producing these boondoggles and that no one is ever held accountable?
It’s time to demand change.
Nathaniel Woodhull
December 6, 2012
Great article JCW, as always. But the salaries within the AOC keep growing. Check out this link via the SacBee. http://www.sacbee.com/statepay
Michael Paul
December 6, 2012
A majority of AOC personnel also got raises for the past 3 years. With regards to no one knowing what the true costs of long beach were, yen pulled up article after article regarding the deal. Not a single article up until DJ’s article mentioned the total costs of this project. Across the board every article stated “details of the transaction were not released”
Maybe those beacons of transparency in the judicial council can explain why the AOC withheld this information until the project was half-built.
Wendy Darling
December 6, 2012
AOC “explanation” for withholding information until the project was half-built, or its explanation for anything else: “We can do whatever we want.”
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
December 6, 2012
Published today, Thursday, December 6, from the Metropolitan News Enterprise:
Jahr Warns of Crisis ‘Escalation’ by Brown Administration
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A disagreement between the Brown administration and the judicial branch leadership over the implementation of last year’s court funding agreement threatens to significantly reduce the branch’s anticipated funding for the fiscal year beginning July 1, the courts’ top administrator warned yesterday.
Administrative Director of the Courts Steven Jahr, in a letter to branch members made public by his office, outlined the branch’s response to “a potential escalation of the budget crisis for our branch” and asked judicial officers and court administrators for assistance.
Jahr explained:
“Since the enactment of the state Budget Act on June 27, 2012, the judicial branch, consistent with budget legislation, has operated on the basis that trial courts had two full years (until June 30, 2014) to spend down accumulated fund balances, using their best business judgment, on a court-by-court basis, to cushion the shock of what has amounted to a one-third cut in operations budgets since fiscal year 2008–2009….
“Last Thursday…I received information from the state Department of Finance…advising that restoration of the one-time portion ($415 million) of this year’s $540 million funding reduction would in fact be only $218 million, because DOF is proposing that the Governor sweep $200 million in remaining court reserves at the end of the 2012–2013 fiscal year to make up the balance of the restoration. They have not stated how, if at all, the reduction would be allocated across the courts.”
‘Assaults on Funding’
The courts and the administration, he explained, had agreed last year that “to protect the interests of the public against assaults on funding the branch” the trial courts would be able to hold on to those reserves for an additional year. But when he met with Director of Finance Ana Matosantos on Tuesday, Jahr explained, “ she indicated that the agreement her office had reached with the Legislature in settling the budget anticipated sweeping these funds, despite the Budget Act trailer bill language, which gave the trial courts until June 30, 2014, to spend down fund balances. “
Jahr estimated that this will mean “a further $261 million of reduced support, totaling a reduction of $475 million to the trial courts statewide, despite all previously successful efforts to find offsets and obtain revenue enhancements.”
Meeting Planned
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Jahr disclosed, plans to meet with Gov. Jerry Brown next Wednesday “to meet with the Governor to communicate the dire consequences of this potential action.”
Jahr said presiding judges, working with Trial Court Presiding Judges Advisory Committee Chair Judge Laurie M. Earl, will be contacting legislators for support on the issue. “Where you can provide assistance, I encourage you to work with your presiding judge to do so,” he said.
http://www.metnews.com/
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
December 6, 2012
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/12/06/52896.htm
,
December 06, 2012Last Update: 4:17 PM PT
Tough Sell
By BILL GIRDNER
California’s courts keep getting hit with bad news.
Last week, Los Angeles Superior Court, the biggest court in the nation, announced the closure of 10 courthouses as part of a plan to shave $50 million in the next fiscal year.
This week, the governor’s department of finance announced that all the state courts must spend down their reserves to make up for $200 million that was supposed to be coming from the state this fiscal year.
That leaves the reserve funds, court savings accounts for lean times, bone dry for next year. It takes away any cushion the courts had for cuts that have piled on top of each other.
It all wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t for Ron George’s birds coming home to roost.
The old chief justice held a Vader-like grip on the California court system for 14 years. The officials working under him at the Administrative Office of the Courts developed a philosophy that said professional administrators are the cat’s miaow of the court system, and that presiding judges are simply padding their resumes.
That cockamamy view was espoused by folks now in the very top echelon of the administrative office, the San Francisco-based, central bureaucracy of California’s courts.
In lock step with those views came a serie
s of disastrous financial decisions by those top administrators, the biggest being the half-billion dollars spent on a software system that wound up this year in the junkyard.
It would be comforting to say those are the sins of the past.
But even now some of the trial courts, in the heart of hard times, continue to spend money on doubtful technical projects. Those dubious decisions make it that much harder to convince the governor and the Legislature that the courts should receive more funds.
For example, California’s fourth biggest court, San Bernardino Superior recently started scanning documents and selling them online — a decision made in the absolute hottest heat of the court budget crisis. But those programs cost millions and use up lots of staff.
Based on our tracking, the result is that roughly two thirds of the new actions cannot be seen, neither online nor at the courthouse, for at least a month. After that they are old as dry bones in news terms.
It makes sense in a way.
If cuts make it so you can’t pay people to do the job, then the job won’t get done.
But why would a court start such a project, one that costs millions and is plainly not working, when the courts is laying off staff and budget cuts are written on the wall.
It’s kind of like a person who just lost his job going out and buying a gadget-loaded car.
In another example, the third biggest court in the state, Orange County Superior is proudly switching to e-filing.
So we are tracking the delays that result.
In a court that has a roughly one-to-one ratio of judges to tech staff, the new, e-filed cases take three or four days to get to where the public and press can see them.
For the cases still filed the old-fashioned way, in paper, it takes one day.
That one day delay was itself a step backwards for press access, caused by the decision to scan the new cases and sell copies online, another multi-million-dollar effort.
Before that move, the press saw new actions — critical information for lawyers in California — at the end of the day they were filed, the traditional immediacy of access granted to the press by courts throughout California and the nation.
So the court continues to march backwards on access while spending millions.
The reason the tech staff is so big in the Orange County court is because of another expensive and bad technological decision, the decision to use the CCMS software that cost California’s public a half-billion before it was abandoned.
We understand that the current four-day delay in press and public access is tied to data entry requirements of that enormous, cumbersome stack of code that still infects the few courts that bit on it.
So, as the bad financial news piles up for the courts, I can’t help but think that the $500 million accumulated in the fat days and blown by bureaucrats on a foolhardy project would sure come in handy now.
And while judges rightfully ask for more public funds, it remains true that nobody has been held to account for that extraordinary waste of public money, and that even now, even in the searing heat of cut after cut, individual courts are still making bad and expensive gambles on technology.
unionman575
December 6, 2012
http://www.courts.ca.gov/20085.htm
Court Security Modifications 4DCA Div. 3 RFP 4DCA-12/13-01-CK
The Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District (Court), Division Three, located at 601 W. Santa Ana Boulevard, California 92701, is seeking proposals from individuals or entities for security modifications to its building to include:
The modification to existing or furnishing of and installation of new double doors to provide Level II bullet resistant glass with a one-way mirror effect from the outside. The finished product shall be consistent with the existing mechanical functionality and aesthetics; dark bronze anodized aluminum. All hardware and any materials used must match the existing door and hardware. The functionality of the doors, which include an ADA button, should not be affected by the changes. Each of the double doors has a 24”x 75 ½” center window.
Questions regarding this RFP should be directed to the solicitations@jud.ca.gov no later than 1:00 pm PST, December 18, 2012
Hard copy proposals must be received no later than January 17, 2013, by 5:00 pm PST.
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/oers.pdf
makara28
December 6, 2012
I don’t know how it’s possible for any trial court to make accurate budgetary projections when, throughout the year, adjustments are made to their fund allocations and reductions. The adjustments themselves appear to present variables of 10% or more of a court’s budget.
This suggests that courts, in the exercise of a sort of enforced caution resulting from their inability make accurate predictions, will regularly forfeit this percentage of their overall operating budgets. The alternative is frenzied spending sprees at the end of each fiscal year, in which stuff is favored over staff. If there is any leeway for creating safety nets, it may possibly come via contracting arrangements with the counties (though I imagine such agreements will quickly be outlawed).
I got far enough into the Government Code to know that the statute imposing the 7/1/14 commencement of the 1% rule is dependent on the status of numerous other enactments (which seems to be the case with everything involving the Judicial Council — nothing is as it appears at first blush). But since the law requires the 2014 date, how does DOF get at them earlier? Has legislation been introduced to advance the start date?
unionman575
December 6, 2012
One moment please while I grab my ankles and cough…
😉
unionman575
December 6, 2012
“— nothing is as it appears at first blush). But since the law requires the 2014 date, how does DOF get at them earlier? Has legislation been introduced to advance the start date?”
Politics = Magic at times. It truly is a smoke filled room up there at Sacramento…and I have to tell you DOF Director Matasantos and Gov Brown are NOT on the same page as our Branch “leaders” over at Death Star Central in the SF Bay.
The Legislature writes the checks and we are getting a series of massive “haircuts”.
CCMS…Court Construction…top heavy management…the list goes on and on…”They” meaning the Legislature, The Gov and his DOF Director aren’t going for the Death Star dog and pony show any more…
We are getting a royal fiscal ass whipping.
unionman575
December 6, 2012
unionman575
December 6, 2012
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20121214-agenda.pdf
PAGE 14….
This is a fucking Gem!
Item V 11:30–11:50 a.m.
Court Facilities: Court Financial Contributions and Judicial Council Oversight (Action Required)
The AOC recommends that the Judicial Council discontinue the existing Court-Funded Facilities Request (CFR) Procedure, with a narrow exception, and recommends additional council actions to ensure informed council oversight of court facilities and related costs. The CFR Procedure was created as an interim measure to assist courts pending completion of the transfers of responsibility for their facilities from counties to the state, and those transfers were completed on December 31, 2009. As legislation enacted this summer further reduced trial court funding and significantly restricted the courts’ ability to carry fund balances, the AOC also recommends that an analysis be prepared for presentation to the Judicial Council in June regarding the courts’ existing financial commitments to contribute to facilities costs and the advisability of permitting future such contributions to supplement insufficient state funding. Such future contributions would be via allocation reduction in narrow circumstances with specified requirements. Finally, the AOC recommends designating the council’s Trial Court Facility Modifications Working Group to receive reporting about court leases generally.
Public Comment and Presentation (10 minutes) • Discussion (10 minutes)
Speakers: Hon. Steven Jahr, Administrative Director of the Courts
Ms. Gisele Corrie, Judicial Branch Capital Program Office
disgusted
December 6, 2012
Translation, please?
unionman575
December 6, 2012
Such future contributions would be via allocation reduction in narrow circumstances with specified requirements.
Translation: The Death Star will reduce trial court trust fund allocations to eahc trial court to cover the “deficiency” in branch funding for building maintenace on EXISTING courthouses.
unionman575
December 6, 2012
Another Gem!
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20121214-agenda.pdf
Item W 11:50 a.m.–12:10 p.m.
AOC Restructuring: Revisions to Policy 8.9–Working Remotely (Telecommuting) (Action Required)
The Administrative Director of the Courts recommends that the Judicial Council approve the revisions to Policy 8.9, Working Remotely (Telecommuting) of the AOC Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual. In August 2012, the Executive and Planning Committee recommended that the Judicial Council direct the Administrative Director of the Courts to require immediate compliance with the requirements and policies in the AOC Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual, including compliance with the rules limiting telecommuting. The Judicial Council further directed the Administrative Director of the Courts to propose amendments to the existing policy. As a response to that directive, the Administrative Director of the Courts confirms that all telecommuting staff are in compliance with the existing policy and has prepared a report containing the proposed revised Policy 8.9 for the council’s consideration. In addition to partially addressing Judicial Council directive 125, the revision better addresses the business justifications for telecommuting, incorporates feedback from the Executive Office and office directors, and addresses eligibility requirements, frequency, and the development of approval mechanisms in order to ensure compliance with the policy.
Public Comment and Presentation (10 minutes) • Discussion (10 minutes)
Speaker: Hon. Steven Jahr, Administrative Director of the Courts
disgusted
December 6, 2012
“the revision better addresses the business justifications for telecommuting”
Yeah, that’s right, there’s more than one way to skin a cat – or I mean policy.
unionman575
December 6, 2012
I hear Switzerland is beautiful this time of year…
😉
unionman575
December 6, 2012
Another Gem!
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20121214-agenda.pdf
Item X 12:10–12:50 p.m.
AOC Policy: Responding to Requests for Information and Records Under Rule 10.500 (Action Required)
Judicial Council members recommend that the council approve and direct the Administrative Director of the Courts to implement a policy for guiding AOC staff in responding to public requests for information/explanation and for judicial administrative records under rule 10.500 of the California Rules of Court. A formal policy is needed because the AOC has recently been receiving an increased number of requests that do not fall squarely within the bounds of rule 10.500. Adoption of the proposed policy and direction to the AOC to implement will ensure appropriate, consistent handling of all requests.
Public Comment and Presentation (20 minutes) • Discussion (20 minutes)
Speakers: Hon. Judith Ashmann-Gerst, Judicial Council member
Hon. Harry E. Hull, Jr., Judicial Council member
Mr. Chad Finke, Court Operations Special Services Office
Lunch 12:50 p.m. (approx.)
INFORMATION
Judicial Council Watcher
December 6, 2012
They want permission to get even more secretive about what they classify as an administrative record.
unionman575
December 6, 2012
“A formal policy is needed because the AOC has recently been receiving an increased number of requests that do not fall squarely within the bounds of rule 10.500. ”
unionman575
December 6, 2012
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20121026-info2.pdf
Say adios to a shitload of TCTF funds…
Oh my…I need to refill my Vodka Tonic…my glass seems t be leaking tonight…
😉
unionman575
December 6, 2012
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20121026-info2.pdf
unionman575
December 6, 2012
LAKE SUPERIOR..
http://www.lake.courts.ca.gov/files/ClerkI-IIRecruitment.pdf
unionman575
December 6, 2012
SAN FRAN Executive Committee Unanimously Approves Labor Agreements
http://www.sfsuperiorcourt.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/TA-FINAL.pdf
unionman575
December 6, 2012
http://www.sanmateocourt.org/documents/court_news_and_notices/113012.pdf
SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN MATEO
PUBLIC NOTICE
(Pursuant to Government Code section 68106)
REDUCED CLERK’S OFFICE HOURS
DUE TO STATE BUDGET CUTS
EFFECTIVE MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2013
unionman575
December 6, 2012
http://www.stanct.org/
Stanislaus Superior Court
** NEW ** Public Notice re: Reduction in office hours: Effective February 4, 2013, Clerk’s Office counter/phone hours will be: 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM Mon. – Thurs. and 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM on Fridays. This change will not affect courtroom calendars or scheduling for hearing dates. Public comments regarding the announced change will be accepted until February 4, 2013, and should be directed to Jeanine Tucker, Operations Manager, at jeanine.tucker@stanct.org.
Wendy Darling
December 6, 2012
Published today, Thursday, December 6, from Courthouse News Service, by Bill Girdner:
Tough Sell
By BILL GIRDNER
California’s courts keep getting hit with bad news.
Last week, Los Angeles Superior Court, the biggest court in the nation, announced the closure of 10 courthouses as part of a plan to shave $50 million in the next fiscal year.
This week, the governor’s department of finance announced that all the state courts must spend down their reserves to make up for $200 million that was supposed to be coming from the state this fiscal year.
That leaves the reserve funds, court savings accounts for lean times, bone dry for next year. It takes away any cushion the courts had for cuts that have piled on top of each other.
It all wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t for Ron George’s birds coming home to roost.
The old chief justice held a Vader-like grip on the California court system for 14 years. The officials working under him at the Administrative Office of the Courts developed a philosophy that said professional administrators are the cat’s miaow of the court system, and that presiding judges are simply padding their resumes.
That cockamamy view was espoused by folks now in the very top echelon of the administrative office, the San Francisco-based, central bureaucracy of California’s courts.
In lock step with those views came a series of disastrous financial decisions by those top administrators, the biggest being the half-billion dollars spent on a software system that wound up this year in the junkyard.
It would be comforting to say those are the sins of the past.
But even now some of the trial courts, in the heart of hard times, continue to spend money on doubtful technical projects. Those dubious decisions make it that much harder to convince the governor and the Legislature that the courts should receive more funds.
For example, California’s fourth biggest court, San Bernardino Superior recently started scanning documents and selling them online — a decision made in the absolute hottest heat of the court budget crisis. But those programs cost millions and use up lots of staff.
Based on our tracking, the result is that roughly two thirds of the new actions cannot be seen, neither online nor at the courthouse, for at least a month. After that they are old as dry bones in news terms.
It makes sense in a way.
If cuts make it so you can’t pay people to do the job, then the job won’t get done.
But why would a court start such a project, one that costs millions and is plainly not working, when the courts is laying off staff and budget cuts are written on the wall.
It’s kind of like a person who just lost his job going out and buying a gadget-loaded car.
In another example, the third biggest court in the state, Orange County Superior is proudly switching to e-filing.
So we are tracking the delays that result.
In a court that has a roughly one-to-one ratio of judges to tech staff, the new, e-filed cases take three or four days to get to where the public and press can see them.
For the cases still filed the old-fashioned way, in paper, it takes one day.
That one day delay was itself a step backwards for press access, caused by the decision to scan the new cases and sell copies online, another multi-million-dollar effort.
Before that move, the press saw new actions — critical information for lawyers in California — at the end of the day they were filed, the traditional immediacy of access granted to the press by courts throughout California and the nation.
So the court continues to march backwards on access while spending millions.
The reason the tech staff is so big in the Orange County court is because of another expensive and bad technological decision, the decision to use the CCMS software that cost California’s public a half-billion before it was abandoned.
We understand that the current four-day delay in press and public access is tied to data entry requirements of that enormous, cumbersome stack of code that still infects the few courts that bit on it.
So, as the bad financial news piles up for the courts, I can’t help but think that the $500 million accumulated in the fat days and blown by bureaucrats on a foolhardy project would sure come in handy now.
And while judges rightfully ask for more public funds, it remains true that nobody has been held to account for that extraordinary waste of public money, and that even now, even in the searing heat of cut after cut, individual courts are still making bad and expensive gambles on technology.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/12/06/52896.htm
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
December 6, 2012
Bill Girdner, you TOTALLY ROCK! Please let us all hear more from you. Excellent reporting.
The OBT
December 6, 2012
Hmm I thought the Judicial Council had a policy for dealing with records requests under Rule 10.500. If you are or are perceived as a critic of the Judicial Council or AOC , Justice Harry Hull takes it upon himself to respond, but only after you send him a letter with a stamp on it . One wonders how a uniquely administrative AOC responsibility would become part of a Justice’s work load. Sounds like the good Justice has become “embroiled ” as to reasonable requests for information that an administrative agency is lawfully required to respond to in an even handed and fair manner. While the Judicial Council wastes time on this, the rest of the Titanic located at 455 Golden Gate is sinking and sinking fast given the latest possible deep budget cuts. If the Chief Justice and her insular allies like J Hull cared about these latest devastating proposals they would call for a branch wide meeting including the CJA and ACJ to listen too all points of view as to how we can avoid further devastating reductions to the budgets of the local trial courts.
unionman575
December 7, 2012
Hmm I thought the Judicial Council had a policy for dealing with records requests under Rule 10.500. If you are or are perceived as a critic of the Judicial Council or AOC , Justice Harry Hull takes it upon himself to respond, but only after you send him a letter with a stamp on it .
Correct it is…
😉
wearyant
December 7, 2012
And a verification under oath before a notary public that it was delivered by Pony Express. Hull apparently is a bazillion years old. Time to refill your vodka and tonic, Unionman575.