We’ve been made privy to the approximate amount of cuts in human resources, courtrooms and whole courthouses that would be coming down the pipeline in the event that either a) One of the previous loans made from branch funds to the general fund was not repaid or b) there was neither an increase in funding or a sizable shift from AOC operations including construction to the trial courts.
Thanks to the help of other readers we know that the current budget as proposed is devastating to the courts. Nearly every program that requires reimbursement from the AOC will be available to courts that are either historically properly or over-funded. These programs that exist in strained courts will vanish within the next year because they won’t be structurally able to wait for reimbursement without reserves.
While we commend Governor Jerry Brown for pushing the envelope and coming up with a balanced budget that has no deficit component and is living within our means, this budget amounts to an immeasurable sacrifice for financially challenged courts that will be forced to discontinue whole programs and lay of all of the personnel associated with those programs. Even the “richer” courts, and I use that term tongue in cheek, will be forced to reconsider these programs because as we all know AOC reimbursement is never a sure thing.
Looking at the whole budget without consideration to the judicial branch, everyone still feels the pain and a variety of other entities, local, county, state agencies including the judicial branch, are owed a collective 29 billion dollars from the state.
Remember IOU 2009?
As much as it hurts, Governor Jerry Brown’s budget is a responsible budget. Our challenge as a branch is convincing the other two branches that our trial courts need more funding and give them a map to secure that funding for those courts. Somehow, the Judicial Council is going to need to learn to live way leaner and that message also needs to be conveyed.
As mentioned by others, DMV funding seems like an obvious choice since it is motorists that clog the system. If we secure something steady like a DMV funding source, it would also appear to address some, but not all of the historical under funding issues if disbursements were based on registered vehicles and drivers in each county.
unionman575
January 10, 2013
More nice work JCW!
😉
One Who Knows
January 10, 2013
JCW –
Your analysis of the Governor’s proposal is interesting, but now how I interpreted his proposed budget. I’m wondering if you could further elaborate on how/why this is so devastating to the courts and beneficial to the AOC? I frankly thought the courts dodged a bullet especially after all of the talk in December about sweeping reserves and potential additional cuts. I read the $200 million transfer in 1407 funds to the trial courts as pro-courts and a blow to the AOC/JC who wanted that restoration to come from the general fund rather than their precious construction dollars. Please elaborate on your budget interpretations….Inquiring minds would like to know….
Judicial Council Watcher
January 10, 2013
Sure. The live within their means part of the budget at the trial court level, the limitation of a 1% reserve being put into place next fiscal year, combined with some courts that have already burned through those reserves must result in the trial courts executing onerous plans to lay off hundreds of court workers and close courtrooms and whole courthouses. There was no additional money put on the table for the trial courts in the budget to offset these already planned, yet not fully announced cuts. Los Angeles is the 800lb gorilla at job loss within the next 12 mos. The AOC’s budget has actually increased a bit.
*edited to add – before Jahr’s sky is falling letter went out, the media was already told by the governors aide that talks of sweeping reserves this year was premature.
One Who Knows
January 10, 2013
Got it! Thanks for the quick response!
Judicial Council Watcher
January 10, 2013
It’s odd because according to some of the numbers reported to us, we’re really not talking about a whole lot of money that would make a world of difference to the trial courts. Statewide, we’re estimating less than a hundred million to stave off all of those losses of services, but we don’t have accurate figures from everyone. What has been communicated in back channels is that the branch can’t count on further funding until it comes up with a solution to solve the issue of historically underfunded courts. So they do what? They form a committee that could never live up to their charter without tons of AOC influence and direct assistance. Basically, the AOC is writing what the muppets intend to put forth as their own work because that’s the way things are done.
Wendy Darling
January 10, 2013
Welcome back, again, to the show that never ends. Published today, Thursday, January 10, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Courts Given Reprieve in Budget
By MARIA DINZEO
(CN) – The operating budgets of California’s trial courts received some relief Thursday from Governor Jerry Brown’s 2013-2014 budget proposal where $200 million scheduled to be taken from local reserve funds would be offset by the same amount taken from the courthouse construction program.
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said she was “relieved” that Brown’s budget announcement Thursday morning didn’t include any further cuts, but said the budget also doesn’t fix the judiciary’s ongoing funding crisis.
“This budget doesn’t answer our problems and our challenges,” Cantil-Sakauye told reporters at a conference call Thursday. “We are relieved that the Governor doesn’t include any additional reductions to operations, but nothing about this budget fixes or ameliorates anything about closures in Fresno of the courts, San Bernardino closures and courts still on reduced hours.”
“This is a flat budget, but it doesn’t stop our advocacy for the needs of the branch,” said the chief justice. “We have a continuing critical problem.”
Governor Brown stuck to education and health care at a press conference unveiling the proposed package, and while the chief justice said she “took no cue or offense” from his leaving out any discussion of the courts, she and Administrative Office of the Courts director Judge Steven Jahr, as well as judiciary lobbyists, are primed to immediately start pushing for some restoration of funding. Four years of consecutive cuts have left the judiciary with a $653 million funding hole, $544 million coming from last year’s budget.
“We have had numerous discussions among ourselves and are willing to move quickly,” Cantil-Sakuye said, though she could not give a specific dollar amount they’ll be asking for. “We’re looking for a dollar amount that’s fair and allows us to continue to provide robust service to the public. We’re still putting finishing touches on that but it will be transparent.”
Without a funding boost, planned court closures based on cuts from last year’s budget will go forward up and down the state. “Nothing changes the fact that Los Angeles, if nothing changes between now and June, is still going to have to institute the measures they’ve taken of closing courts and giving two judges the responsibility of 15,000 civil cases,” Cantil-Sakuye said. But nothing is definite until the Governor’s revised budget is released in May. “This is January, not June, and we are optimistic about May,” she said.
In addition to a $200 million transfer from the construction program, the Governor’s budget mandates that the judiciary take about $35 million from its construction fund to make the first of many annual payments owed to a developer on a new courthouse in Long Beach. The judiciary contends that the Legislature had always promised to find money for the over $400 million project in the General Fund, and the chief justice said they will “absolutely” be advocating for Legislature to make good on this.
Judicial branch leaders claim to have been blindsided last month by news that they would have to pay for the Long Beach courthouse out of the construction fund. Now with another $200 million hit to the program, it is likely that some of the 23 other planned courthouse projects will have to be put on hold.
“The one time $200 million and Long Beach puts an enormous strain on the program for replacing court facilities, many of which are well past their due dates. We have a great deal of ground to make up,” AOC Director Steven Jahr said.
The Governor is also moving forward with plans to sweep all 58 trial court reserve funds over one percent and establish a statewide emergency reserve. The $200 million transfer from the construction program is intended to relieve pressure on the courts to spend down their fund balances this year. While the courts thought they had two years to accomplish this, in December they were caught off guard by an announcement from the Department of Finance that it intended the plan to proceed within one year.
“The law that requires those fund balances to be spent down to one percent must be changed. That has got to be tackled and the budget here doesn’t provide a proposed resolution,” said Jahr, noting that in light of budget cuts in the past four years, courts have been using their fund balances to meet payroll and financial obligations imposed by the federal government for which they sometimes wait months to be reimbursed.
Responding to Governor Brown’s declaration that he intends to exercise his power to say no to critical needs throughout the state, the chief justice said she will work to change his attitude toward funding the courts. “I’m a realist but I’m an optimist as well. It may be the administration’s view but we hope to change that. This isn’t living within our means; we are not even within our means in terms of providing justice to the public.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/01/10/53808.htm
***************************************************************************************************
Quote of the day: “We have a continuing critical problem.” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.
Note to the Chief Justice: Yes, you do have a “continuing critical problem.” However, you are mistaken that the “continuing critical problem” in judicial branch administration has to due with the budget.
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
January 10, 2013
Another Tani quote that I find interesting:
“We’re looking for a dollar amount that’s fair and allows us to continue to provide robust service to the public. We’re still putting finishing touches on that but it will be transparent.”
What goes on in this woman’s head? “… continue to provide robust service to the public”? Huh? The courts have been staggering from reeling cuts for years now to the point the public is hardly served by waiting for hours after driving for hours, then more than likely not having their matters heard or even filed.
Tani uses the word “transparent” again. Is her definition for this word similar to her understanding of what truth is? Gawd. The continuing As the JC/AOC/CJ World Turns saga, the soap opera that never ends.
Michael Paul
January 10, 2013
Tani’s version of transparency. It was more than a month ago I requested information on the long beach courthouse. While I received the information from the DOF nearly instantly, the AOC has yet to produce their answers. If you want me to call you peter or lynn, I can do that. What time is good for you?
courtflea
January 10, 2013
Wearyant you took thewords right out of my mouth! The word transparent is used so much by these people that it has become almost meaningless, sorta like the word gourmet. As the stomach curns is right 🙂 that woman could not fight he way outta a swag bag. And for that matter, neither could le Jahr head.
unionman575
January 11, 2013
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/news/2013/01/11/11961/state-courts-continue-cut-services-increase-fees-u/
California superior courts continue to cut services, increase fees under budget proposal
Erika Aguilar | January 11th, 2013, 6:00am
Empty courtroom where layoffs in the Los Angeles Superior Court system were announced March 16, 2010.
California judicial officials are saying the state budget plan Governor Jerry Brown announced Thursday isn’t good for courts, but it’s not bad either.
“The good news is that it appears our trial courts will not suffer additional general fund reductions,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in a written statement.
“Unfortunately,” she added, “our immediate and critical needs account, which is vital for court safety and compliance projects, stands to lose another $235 million, nearly eliminating meaningful upgrades for several years.”
State courts have been dealt $1.2 billion in budget cuts over the past five years. The proposed state budget released Thursday predicted that trial courts would have to make permanent changes to achieve about $200 million in savings.
Los Angeles Superior Court announced in November that it plans to close 10 courthouses in the county this year because of budget reductions. Last year, L.A. courts laid off hundreds of court staff. San Bernardino and Fresno counties are planning shutdowns, too.
The Governor’s budget proposal calls for statutory changes to reduce workloads through administrative efficiencies and an increase in user fees to pay trial court services.
Consumer Attorneys of California President Brian Kabateck said the budget announcement was good in that it didn’t propose deep operational cuts – but that increasing fees would limit access to the courts.
“The public has had to absorb big fee increases, longer lines, longer waits to access justice. If things don’t change, it’ll get far, far worse for our courts,” Kabateck said in a statement.
Wendy Darling
January 11, 2013
More whining from Her Majesty. Published today, Friday, January 11, from the Metropolitan News Enterprise, by Jackie Fuchs:
Chief Justice, Others Decry Cuts in Brown’s Budget
By JACKIE FUCHS, Staff Writer
California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and state Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, yesterday issued a joint response to cuts to the judiciary set forth in Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed 2013-14 budget.
That budget contemplates a transfer of $200 million out of the Immediate and Critical Needs Account, which provides construction money for the state’s aging court infrastructure.
“[T]he judicial branch sees both reasons for hope as well as reasons for concern in the Governor’s proposed budget,” Cantil-Sakauye said in the release. “The good news is that it appears our trial courts will not suffer additional general fund reductions for the 2013-24 fiscal year. Unfortunately, our immediate and critical needs account, which is vital for court safety and compliance projects, stands to lose another $235 million, nearly eliminating meaningful upgrades for several years.”
Evans added in the release:
“Access to justice is a core tenant of our Democratic values… Although this budget proposal spares deeper cuts, the buildings which house justice are still crumbling and we have no further resources to rebalance the scales of justice.”
Consumer Attorneys of California, which represents the plaintiffs’ tort bar, issued its own release, in which its president, Brian Kabateck, commended the governor’s finance team for avoiding deep operational cuts to California’s courts.
But, he added:
“At first blush the governor’s new budget appears to maintain the status quo. Unfortunately, with the courts absorbing more than $1 billion in cuts over the past five years, the status quo… has been a disaster… And it’s the public – particularly the poor, the elderly, women, children, veterans – who suffer for it.”
CAOC cited, as an example, the Los Angeles Superior Court, which it noted “has been forced to make upward of $85 million in cuts to programs that have resulted in the on-going closure of 10 full courthouses… and other operational changes that have the net effect of creat[ing] long lines for basic services and slowing the administration of justice..”
Kabateck also lamented a possible increase in court user fees to support the ongoing workload of the trial courts, which he says would come on top of $116 million in fee hikes already enacted by the state during the 2010-11 and 2012-13 budget years.
If court funding from the state’s General Fund money isn’t restored, he said, the courts could be pushed toward collapse.
http://www.metnews.com/
Long live the ACJ.
courtflea
January 11, 2013
So Tani, hows the implementation of the SEC report coming? You should be recognizing those long term cutbacks the gov is looking for by now……hey Jerry, why dont you ask her?
Michael Paul
January 11, 2013
She’ll get back to you in about a year.This is a marathon intended to wear you down and demoralize you, not a race. It is the new greatest show on earth…..
Many of the issues recognized as problems with a suitable recommendation to address them made by the SEC committee have been cast aside.
fifthamendment
January 11, 2013
Another work group will probably need to be formed to check into why the recommendations have not been implemented…
Wendy Darling
January 11, 2013
Published today, Friday, January 11, from The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl Miller:
Austere Court Budgets Are the New Normal
By Cheryl Miller
SACRAMENTO — Governor Jerry Brown has declared 2013 the year of fiscal sobriety in California. In the eyes of state court leaders, though, it’s looking more like 12 months of a painful financial hangover.
The 2013-14 budget Brown delivered Thursday was free of the nine-figure cuts and fund borrowing that have tormented the judiciary over the past four years. But to the chagrin of lawyers and judges, it offered no new money either. And it suggested that the austere conditions that now characterize many courthouses around the state are here to stay, at least for the short-term.
“Beginning in 2014-15, reserves and fund balances will mostly be exhausted, which will require trial courts to make permanent changes to achieve roughly $200 million in savings needed to achieve structural balance,” the proposal said.
Translation: This is the new normal.
“Most people want to spend more money than the state has and I will tell you that 2013 is the year of fiscal discipline and living within our means. And I’m going to make sure that happens,” Brown told reporters at a press event prior to Thursday’s budget release. “People want to have more child care, they want to have more people locked up, they want to have more rehab — more, more, more. More judges. More courtrooms. We have to live within reasonable limits.”
So while the blood-letting appears to have stopped for California’s courts, there’s no transfusion on the horizon. And that leaves a new reality for the state’s judicial system, one that favors the haves over the have-nots.
The state used to pick up most of the cost of court operations. Not anymore. Between 2008 and 2012, the general fund share of the judicial budget dropped from 56 percent to 20 percent, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, while the state cut or borrowed more than $1.2 billion from the branch. Funding increasingly comes from civil filing fees and criminal penalties, more volatile money sources that were originally designed to pay for construction projects and other one-time costs.
And that’s shifted more bills to court users. Lawyers and litigants can expect to pay an estimated $116 million in new fees on services ranging from first-paper filings to appearance-by-court arrangements over a two-year period that started in 2010, according to research by the Consumer Attorneys of California.
It doesn’t stop there. Want a court reporter for a civil case? Better hire one. Many courts have stopped providing them. If the governor’s proposal passes, lawyers and litigants can also expect to pay more for copies of records and record searches. They’re already waiting longer to reach a court clerk or even a judge in a civil courtroom. Public window hours have been cut back, drop boxes have replaced clerks, employees have been laid off or furloughed and courthouses have been closed — 10 in Los Angeles County alone.
“It’s taking us eight weeks to process anything left in our drop boxes,” said Sacramento County Superior Court Presiding Judge Laurie Earl. “We’re not functioning well at all.”
Wealthy clients can choose private judging to avoid the hassle. Those of more modest means will have to figure things out on their own. In Sacramento, for instance, 70 percent of family law parties are self-represented. But budget cuts gutted most case-specific services in the court’s self-help center in July.
With no restored funding, disparities among trial courts are likely to continue, too. Kings County Superior Court has imposed 27 unpaid furlough days on its workers, closed the Lemoore courthouse, and forced the court executive officer and assistant court executive officer to job-share. San Francisco Superior Court, by contrast, was able to give employees a 3 percent pay raise and a one-time $3,500 bonus in what officials say was a cost-neutral deal involving worker pension and health care contributions.
Things will only get worse over the next 18 months as the trial courts are forced to spend almost all of the remaining dollars in their reserves. For most courts, all of the “easy” budget-trimming solutions will be gone at that point. What happens then? Judiciary leaders’ answer has largely been, “We won’t let it happen.”
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye acknowledged the governor’s hold-the-line-on-new-spending mantra.
“But we have to change that by the examples we can bring not only to the governor but to the Legislature of how this isn’t living within our means, because we are not even within our means in providing justice to the public,” she said in a conference call with reporters on Thursday. “So I’m fully aware of the possibility that this is the reality. But this is also January. It’s not the June budget.”
Cantil-Sakauye said she is trying to come up with a budget-increase dollar figure that she could persuade Brown and legislators would “provide robust service to the public.”
The courts have found a few legislative voices calling for restored funding. Senator Noreen Evans, chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee and Judicial Council member, co-authored an unusual joint statement with the chief justice Thursday decrying “detrimental hits” suffered by the judicial budget in recent years.
“We bottomed out last year … and now is precisely the time when we should look at restoring some of the cuts of previous years,” Evans said in an interview Thursday.
Other lawmakers have publicly heeded the governor’s call for spending restraint. When a handful of Democrats have spoken of expanding funding, they’ve usually focused on health care, not courts.
“We’re in this little middle-ground area, no more cuts but not sufficient monies to make restorations,” said Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who chairs the budget committee.
Brian Kabateck, a Los Angeles lawyer and president of the Consumer Attorneys of California, said court users should pitch lawmakers on boosting funding for publicly popular legal services like adoptions, domestic violence restraining orders and even specialty drug and veterans courts.
“When we start talking about those services I think it’s hard for elected officials to turn their backs,” Kabateck said.
Restoring money for those programs would free up some resources for trial calendars and it would get state leaders “in the rhythm of getting money back to the courts,” he said.
“Everyone would like to see a billion dollars returned to the courts. That’s not going to happen in 2013,” said Kabateck. “So let’s be pragmatic and think about courts as a whole and access to justice.”
But even if branch and legal leaders can persuade lawmakers to send some money back to the judiciary, they still have to deal with Brown. He did offer a budget bouquet to the branch by scrapping Department of Finance plans to take trial court reserves a year earlier than planned. But he has remained publicly adamant that he promised California voters last year that he’d control spending if they approved his tax hikes. And they did.
“I accept and embrace my role of saying no,” Brown said Thursday.
http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202584261615&Austere_Court_Budgets_Are_the_New_Normal
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
January 11, 2013
Statement Issued by Judge David S. Wesley,
Presiding Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court,
Regarding Governor Brown’s Proposed Budget Plan
Jan. 11, 2013
Governor Jerry Brown’s budget proposal, released Thursday, preserves previous budget reductions to the California trial courts and, by doing so, confirms the need for the Los Angeles Superior Court to implement a plan to close 10 courthouses by June 30.
The Governor proposes to maintain last year’s level of fiscal support for the trial courts. In place of $400 million of expired one-time funding solutions in the FY12-13 budget, he proposes to redirect $200 million of money currently earmarked for new courthouse construction, and fill the rest with General Fund revenues.
This proposal would preserve $505 million of reductions in state support already imposed on California’s trial courts. Those reductions result in an annual budget shortfall of $195 million for the Los Angeles Superior Court in fiscal year 2013-14.
Much of that shortfall has already been absorbed by the Court which has already reduced staffing by more than 800 positions over the past three years – a 16% contraction of staffing which, along with other savings, has reduce annual spending by $110 million.
“Despite the huge cuts already imposed, we have implemented significant operating efficiencies that have allowed us to keep intact our ability to provide access to justice,” notes Presiding Judge David S. Wesley.
“But we have run out of options,” Wesley notes. A shortfall of $85 million remains. While the Court will postpone the impacts for the rest of the current fiscal year by the use of its reserve funds, those funds will run out in June, 2013.
Therefore the Court must take steps now to reduce its annual budget by $85 million by the beginning of the next fiscal year on July 1, 2013. While the specific impacts on the Court will not be clear until the budget process concludes, the Governor’s proposal confirms the need to move forward with the plan announced in November to close 10 courthouses (Pomona North, Whittier, Huntington Park, Catalina, San Pedro, Beacon Street, Malibu, West Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Kenyon Juvenile) and to consolidate court services at fewer locations (for instance, to hear Small Claims cases
in 6 locations, rather than the 26 locations where they are currently heard). These changes will result in the elimination of a large number of staff positions to achieve the required savings.
The Court will soon meet with employees’ bargaining representatives to meet and confer over the impact of the staff reductions and the reorganization.
The necessary consolidation will greatly reduce the range of services available to communities throughout the county of Los Angeles. It will place a significant burden on law enforcement officials, prosecutors and other justice system partners. And it will make it much more difficult for people to get to court.
“We are witnessing the dismantling of the Los Angeles justice system,” said Wesley. “The sustained decline in state support for the California trial courts evidenced in the Governor’s budget proposal will prove crippling to our ability to provide adequate access to justice.”
wearyant
January 11, 2013
Thanks for posting Judge Wesley’s statement, Unionman575. Always good to hear from him. Very sad too, to witness the dismantling of the justice system all over California.
unionman575
January 11, 2013
That was e-mailed at 4:52 p.m. today.
unionman575
January 11, 2013
You now we are very busy up here at the Death Star with our heads up our asses…
http://www.courts.ca.gov/20583.htm
The council’s public meeting is scheduled from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on January 17 in the Judicial Council Conference Center, Hiram Johnson State Office Building, Third Floor, Ronald M. George State Office Complex, 455 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco. (Due to the unusually brief meeting and to limit travel time and expenses, many council members and presenters will attend via teleconference.)
wearyant
January 11, 2013
“Due to the unusually brief meeting and to limit travel time and expenses, many council members and presenters will attend via teleconference.”
Translation from JC/AOC/CJ talk to beleaguered citizenry understanding: Expense reimbursement requests will be reviewed more carefully now that the cover has been blown regarding whooping it up with lobster, grey goose liquor and caviar — or whatever the beautiful people consume at their forays. We won’t forget your sacrifice, Jack U.
The unwashed huddled masses look forward to this meeting of the elitists and their remarks which usually convey how out of touch they are with the real world. Pedialytes are recommended to replace vitamins and minerals lost from vomiting.
unionman575
January 11, 2013
Too late Ant…
I already lost it…
unionman575
January 11, 2013
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20130117-agenda.pdf
DISCUSSION AGENDA (ITEMS D–H)
Item D 1:25–1:50 p.m.
Mid-Year Budget Update: Governor’s Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2013–2014 (No Action required. There are no materials for this item.)
AOC staff will provide a budget update, including a review of the Governor’s proposed budget for 2013–2014.
Public Comment and Presentation (10 minutes) • Discussion (15 minutes)
Speakers: Hon. Steven Jahr, Administrative Director of the Courts
Mr. Cory Jasperson, Office of Governmental Affairs
Mr. Zlatko Theodorovic, Fiscal Services Office
unionman575
January 11, 2013
Let me get this straight…25 minutes on the budget and 30 minutee chatting about an out of control OCCM Construction Program that Nobody can afford..
Yeah right!
😉
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20130117-agenda.pdf
DISCUSSION AGENDA (ITEMS D–H)
Item E 1:50–2:20 p.m.
SB 1407 Projects, and Fiscal Year 2013–2014 One-Time and Ongoing Funding Requests for Facility Modifications and Facility Operational Costs for New Courthouses (Action Required)
The Court Facilities Working Group (the working group) recommends the indefinite delay of four SB 1407 projects due to the potential redirection of funding from Senate Bill (SB) 1407 construction funds to fund the Long Beach courthouse project (Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse). Other projects are recommended to move forward based on previous council direction. The working group also recommends submission of fiscal year 2013–2014 one-time and ongoing funding requests for facility modifications and for facility operational costs for new courthouses, to be funded by construction funds.
Public Comment and Presentation (15 minutes) • Discussion (15 minutes)
Speaker: Hon. Brad R. Hill, Chair, Court Facilities Working Group
unionman575
January 11, 2013
unionman575
January 11, 2013
1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
A 3 hour meeting…
Perhaps it’s a 3 hour tour…
😉
unionman575
January 11, 2013
I stand corrected, it’s a 2 hour quickie meeting…after all, what’s there to talk about up there at the Death Star…it is business as usual…
Assholes.
Wendy Darling
January 11, 2013
Branch “leadership” doesn’t need a three-hour tour to get lost. They’re already there.
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
January 11, 2013
So stipulated Wendy.
Judicial Council Watcher
January 12, 2013
One could only dream….
unionman575
January 11, 2013
PAGE 3 LONG BEACH ON MY MIND AGAIN…
SIGH…
Damn! The annual service fee for this new courthouse, ongoing for 35 years for the development, operations, and maintenance of this facility, averages $61.1 million.
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20130117-itemE.pdf
The most recent development in funding the judicial branch construction program is that all indications are there will not be General Fund dollars available next year to pay for the Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse. The new Long Beach courthouse is scheduled to open in August 2013, triggering the first of ongoing payments for the construction, operations, and maintenance of this facility. General Fund monies for this project have been planned since 2007. The annual service fee for this new courthouse, ongoing for 35 years for the development, operations, and maintenance of this facility, averages $61.1 million.
There is only one viable source of funds that can be used to pay for the Long Beach project if no General Funds are available: SB 1407 funds must bear the burden of the Long Beach payments. Until a General Fund appropriation is received to fund these Long Beach payments, the branch cannot move forward on approximately $550 million in SB 1407 construction phase project costs. This estimate is based on review of the long-term cash flow analysis of the SB 1407 fund, including all key variables such as revenue projections, project costs, borrowing rates, and funding other critical facility needs including facility modifications and facility operating costs for new courthouses.
unionman575
January 11, 2013
Here we go folks let’s do some Friday night “Long Beach Courthouse” Math:
Wow! I am on a roll tonight…
$61,100,000 annual service fee x 35 Years = $2,138,500,000
Can we afford THAT?
HELL NO!
😉
Judicial Council Watcher
January 12, 2013
Average payment = New speak for paying tens of millions of maintenance dollars in advance every year while the rest of court infrastructure crumbles. Besides, you forgot to index that 61.1 mil for inflation and so did the AOC.
😉
unionman575
January 12, 2013
😉
unionman575
January 11, 2013
Lando
January 11, 2013
Sadly it seems the CJ isn’t getting it. The massive budget reductions that continue to be imposed on the branch are all being passed on to the trial courts. To the extent new courthouses are actually needed the most recent proposed cuts effect that aspect of trial court services as well. Far worse however, is the closure of current courthouses, massive employee layoffs , significant reductions of services to the public and delay in getting cases out to trial. Despite all this what has changed at the JC/AOC ? I believe the Office of General Counsel remains ” robust ” and word has it that some of their lawyers still telecommute. JC meetings still occur with members being flown in from all over the state and put up at SF hotels at significant expense. Why not put the AOC TV station to good use by setting up a Skype type meeting system to avoid all those travel expenses? The JC/ AOC has made no effort to follow the SEC recommendation to move from their posh digs at the crystal palace to more modest space in Sacramento. The CJER arm of the AOC continues to employ way too many people as they have moved to web based educational programs. Probably most disturbing is the current top heavy management structure of the AOC which has 4 people doing the work of 2 at the most. I appreciate the CJ wanting to get the trial courts more funds. Thanks. However, she could be more effective if she would take some responsibility for the mess we are in and start significantly reducing the JC/AOC budget and implement the changes the SEC report recommended. The amazing part of all this is that the JC/AOC continue to fail to make the connection that their waste of millions on CCMS, and overpriced new courthouses have had any adverse impact on the current budget proposals. We need new leadership. Creating an elected JC would be the first step in the right direction. Recalling the CJ would be the next.
Judicial Council Watcher
January 12, 2013
Our apologies: These messages were caught up in our spam queue for some unknown reason. It happens on occasion with regular posters and we haven’t been able to figure out why.
unionman575
January 12, 2013
http://recalltani.wordpress.com/
wearyant
January 12, 2013
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Frederic Bastiat
unionman575
January 12, 2013
Destruction, hence, like creation, is one of Nature’s mandates.
Marquis de Sade
😉
Wendy Darling
January 12, 2013
“Sadly it seems the CJ isn’t getting it.” Ah, Lando, that is the real essence of the problem, isn’t it?
She “didn’t get it” when the Bureau of State Audits issued its report regarding CCMS and AOC “management practices.”
She “didn’t get it” when the State Legislature sent her a letter that Vickrey should be fired.
She “didn’t get it” when she had a public temper tantrum and blamed the State Legislature for the state of judicial branch administration.
She “didn’t get it” when the State Legislature red penciled the judicial branch budget the first time (or the second time, either.)
She “didn’t get it” when the State Legislature enacted the essential elements of AB 1208.
She “didn’t get it” when the SEC issued its report
She “didn’t get it” when Pegasus Global Holdings issued its report on OCCM and AOC “management practices.”
She “didn’t get it” when . . .
And she most certainly doesn’t “get it” now.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
Lando
January 11, 2013
Long Beach is the next CCMS.
The OBT
January 12, 2013
Long Beach = CCMS .