Before July 1 2013, they earned more per capita than any court in California. We heard about the raise some time ago and I guess we were somewhat in disbelief of how the chief justice could give these people another 3.5% raise (link) and yet, they have not completed their reorg, implemented the recommendations of the strategic evaluation committee or paid a million dollars for a self-serving study that will come to the predetermined result that they are underpaid, understaffed and overworked. Meanwhile, justice grinds to a halt at courthouse steps statewide.
I believe the appropriate gentle term for our chief justice is this:
TONE DEAF.
Posted in: Judicial Council of California
Wendy Darling
August 23, 2013
I believe that the appropriate descriptive term for the chief justice is: blind, deaf, and dumb.
You just can’t make this stuff up. Really.
courtflea
August 23, 2013
emphasis on the dumb.
Wendy Darling
August 23, 2013
Speaking of “emphasis on the dumb” . . . published today, Friday, August 23, from The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl Miller:
Capital Accounts: Chief Raises Hackles With Latest Pay Hikes
By Cheryl Miller
SACRAMENTO — Sometimes good policy is just bad politics. It’s an old saw that Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye must be pondering these days.
Late Thursday a document surfaced showing that Cantil-Sakauye authorized what are effectively 3.5 percent pay increases for hundreds of employees of the Administrative Office of the Courts, the appellate courts, the Supreme Court and the Habeas Corpus Resource Center. The order, dated July 3, was signed just six days after the governor enacted a state budget giving the judiciary an extra $63 million — and clear instructions to spend that money on keeping local courtrooms open.
News of the pay increases has not been received warmly in one legislative corner.
“It’s like keeping cable when your lights are being turned off. It is crazy to me,” said Fredericka McGee, general counsel to Assembly Speaker John Perez.
The pay raises are more precisely referred to as step increases, which boost workers’ income as they advance from one level to the next due to years of service and satisfactory work evaluations. The annual step increases have been available to eligible judicial branch workers for years, minus a one-year budget-related hiatus in 2009.
Cantil-Sakauye saw no justification for stopping them in 2013 despite the ongoing budget drama.
“Step increases occur in all three branches of government and at all levels throughout the state,” the chief justice said through a spokesman on Friday. “I see no reason why employees who work for the chief justice, the appellate justices, or the Judicial Council should be treated any differently.”
But McGee and others remember the months California’s judicial leaders spent this spring and summer painting for legislators a horrific picture of the pain years of massive budget cuts had wrought upon their constituents.
Inland Empire residents were being forced to drive hours through the desert to find an open courtroom. Unable to obtain a protective order from a budget-strapped court, a woman and her child had to sleep in their car, too afraid to return home to an abuser. San Joaquin County Superior Court had simply stopped processing small claims cases.
Sympathetic lawmakers and the governor, lobbied heavily by judges, lawyers and local nonprofit advocates, allocated the extra $63 million to the judicial branch. The money came with a caveat, however, as the chairman of the committee overseeing the judiciary’s budget explained.
“It cannot be used for raises, it cannot be used for construction or infrastructure projects,” Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, said in June. “It can only be used to keep the courts open and provide access to justice.”
Branch leaders say that added money is going where it was intended. The $1 million price tag to give step increases to 402 employees will be covered by other funds. And those workers will still be taking unpaid furlough days, although the number has been cut from 12 a year to six.
But to McGee, the distinction doesn’t matter.
“When you’re talking about who has immediate contact with the public, it’s the trial courts,” she said. “You have to frontload your resources where the greatest need is.”
Behind the scenes, some AOC and Judicial Council members grouse that any legislative criticism is hypocritical. They note that lawmakers got a 5 percent pay raise this year — courtesy of the Citizens Compensation Committee. And more than 1,000 legislative employees enjoyed a salary hike last year.
That’s true. But the Legislature still holds the ax over the judiciary’s budget. And the optics of the chief justice handing our pay bumps amid such judicial misery just sharpens her critics’ blades. The Alliance of California Judges issued a press release Thursday night promising that its members would not let the step increases “go unnoticed.”
“It has become all too clear that keeping our local courts open is not the first priority of the Judicial Council or branch leadership,” the judges’ group said. “We call upon the Legislature to direct that a top to bottom audit of the AOC be conducted.”
There’s little chance the Legislature would do anything in reaction to the pay order this year. But lawmakers, most now serving under extended term limits, may have longer memories during budget negotiations next year.
http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202616871612&Capital_Accounts_Chief_Raises_Hackles_With_Latest_Pay_Hikes
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
August 23, 2013
JCW that’s a great document find!
😉
Disgusted
August 24, 2013
Sorry! I just can’t bear to watch any longer.
Wendy Darling
August 24, 2013
It is like seeing a really bad accident on the road, isn’t it Disgusted? At some point you just have to avert your eyes from the carnage.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
August 24, 2013
I’m with you, Disgusted. The carnage is too much to bear …
anonymous
August 24, 2013
2010 3.5% increase plus special increases as much as 20% for management
2011 3.5% increase
2012 3.5% increase
2013 3.5% increase
This is how our chief justice rewards loyalty to her thousand man army that sits on top of all the courts statewide, tirelessly advocating for the same courts she’s robbing blind.
Five percent of the entire judicial branch workforce and in particular those who have nothing to do with adjudicating cases are given ten percent of the funding intended to bail out the trial courts.
Hello, other two branches, is there anyone home?
sharonkramer
August 24, 2013
RICO charges filed in San Diego this week by CALIFORNIA COALITION FOR FAMILIES AND CHILDREN., a Delaware Corporation, LEXEVIA, PC, a California Professional Corporation,and COLBERN C. STUART, an individual.
Among the usual suspects:
Defendants GORE, TRENTACOSTA, RODDY, CANTIL-SAKAUYE…are employees authorized by statute to perform certain duties under color of state law, and shall hereinafter be collectively referred to as COLOR OF LAW DEFNDANTS (COLD).
Also named:
JUDICIAL COUNCIL, a municipal entity; ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE COURTS, a municipal entity; COMMISSION ON JUDICIAL PERFORMANCE, a municipal entity;
NewsViews
August 30, 2013
Reblogged this on News and Views Riverside Superior Court and National Family Law Abuse.