You will recall that the Alliance of California Judges proposed an audit of the Judicial Council, which was requested by Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer, and which was unanimously approved by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee in the last legislative session over opposition from the Judicial Council. The State Auditor released her report today, and it is available for your review here. We will let you draw your own conclusions about the report, but we offer these highlights from the Executive Summary of the report:
(1) The Judicial Council did not adequately oversee the AOC in managing the judicial branch budget, which allowed the AOC to engage in questionable compensation and business practices. The AOC:
- Provides its staff with generous salaries and benefits—the AOC pays eight of its nine office directors more than the governor and many other high-ranking executive branch officials receive.
- Employs over 70 contractors and temporary employees and could save about $7.2 million per year by using state employees in comparable positions.
- Maintains a fleet of 66 vehicles without requiring its offices to justify the need.
(2) The AOC “spent certain judicial branch funds in a questionable manner,” having made about $386 million in payments over the last four years on behalf of trial courts using funds appropriated to them, even though it could have paid a portion of those payments from its own funds.
(3) The AOC has sole autonomy in deciding how to spend certain judicial branch funds due to the lack of Judicial Council’s involvement in the budgeting process.
(4) The AOC has few policies, procedures, or controls in place to ensure funds are appropriately used and spent and, unlike the executive branch, is not required to undergo an annual independent financial audit.
(5) Although it provides services to the courts, the AOC has never comprehensively surveyed the courts to identify the needs of the courts and ensure that services it provides are useful.
(6) The AOC exaggerated the progress it has made in implementing the recommendations made by the Strategic Evaluation Committee back in 2012.
A specific quote from the State Auditor is: “[t]he level of the Judicial Council’s involvement in the AOC’s budget process and expenditure decisions appears to have been more ministerial than substantive. In the absence of adequate oversight, the AOC engaged in questionable compensation and business practices, and failed to adequately disclose its expenditures to stakeholders and the public.”
The State Auditor was also tasked by the Legislature in 2010 to audit the CCMS project, an audit also supported by the Alliance. That audit report, released in early 2011, was the impetus for the eventual abandonment of that boondoggle, albeit after more than a half billion dollars were wasted — money that could have been used to keep courts open and staff employed. That audit was opposed by then Chief Justice George, and the project was defended, even in light of the devastating audit report, by Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye and others who were heavily invested in the project.
Changing the name of the agency has not made these problems go away. It is now time for the Judicial Council, with direction from the recently-hired Administrative Director of the Courts, Martin Hoshino, to come to grips with what many of us have been saying for some time: the Judicial Council has lost touch with its primary mission of advising the courts, and has instead morphed into an over-bloated bureaucracy that places its own interests ahead of those of the trial courts it was created to serve. The State Auditor has also recommended that the Judicial Council should create a separate advisory body to review the AOC’s state operations and local assistance expenditures in detail to ensure that they are justified and prudent.
We have never contended that we have all of the answers to the problems facing our court system, but we persist in one unwavering belief — money could not have been so tragically misdirected if the process whereby funds are allocated to the courts had been an open and democratic one. After we have had the time to fully digest the audit report, we will offer a comprehensive solution to the problems created by the insular bureaucracy that has brought us to this point. It is time to demand meaningful change and refuse to accept further promises of improvement in a governance system that is fundamentally flawed.
Directors, Alliance of California Judges
unionman575
January 12, 2015
More nice work JCW.
😉
unionman575
January 12, 2015
Thank you Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer.
California Coalition for Families and Children
January 12, 2015
Reblogged this on California Coalition for Families and Children, PBC.
wearyant
January 12, 2015
I look forward to further input from the Alliance of California Judges and join with the venerable UMan in thanking Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer. Long live the ACJ and JCW!
JusticeCalifornia
January 12, 2015
Thank you, ACJ, Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer, and State Auditor Elaine Howle.
Now the JC needs to be democratized. It is pretty clear that the true leaders of the branch are not sitting at that Judicial Council table speaking with one voice.
unionman575
January 13, 2015
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/3369883-181/pd-editorial-thumbs-up-thumbs
Who’s minding the administrators?
The years 2009 to 2013 were said to be extremely difficult ones for California public agencies, a time of deep budget cuts amid severely reduced tax revenue. Not so with the administrative office of California’s court system, according to a scathing audit released last week.
While other state agencies were slashing budgets, cutting staff and freezing wages, the Administrative Office of the Courts was spending generously, including paying eight of its nine office directors a salary of more than $179,000 a year. That’s more than the salary of Gov. Jerry Brown. In all, the audit questioned $30 million in compensation expenses and other costs that the office approved in the four-year span, money that could have gone to the state’s cash-strapped and back-logged court system.
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who heads the Judicial Council, said the audit “give us another useful tool to help us make progress.” Verdict: That’s a major understatement.