Today, March 11, at 10:00 AM, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and the Assembly Budget Subcommittee 5 will hold a hearing on State Auditor Elaine Howle’s recent audit of the California Judicial Council. This audit, much like the audit of the CCMS computer project, found numerous instances of lack of oversight, mismanagement, inappropriate spending by the AOC of funds which should have been turned over to the trial courts for their operations, and exorbitant salaries and overly generous perks being given to AOC top management.
Alliance of California Judges Directors Judge W. Kent Hamlin of the Fresno Superior Court, and Judge Tia Fisher of the Los Angeles Superior Court, will speak on behalf of the Alliance of California Judges. In addition, the hearing is scheduled to be broadcast on the CalChannel and should be viewable at http://www.calchannel.com/tv-schedule/
sharonkramer
March 11, 2015
Please tell me the word “crime” will be used in their presentations to those who could cause a REAL investigation.
unionman575
March 11, 2015
More fine work ACJ & JCW.
😉
Auntie Bureaucrat
March 11, 2015
It looks like there will be a re-broadcast Friday at 4:00 PM… For those who are interested but find that 10:00 a.m. is the busiest time on our calendars. I suspect there are a few of us here in that situation.
wearyant
March 11, 2015
Time to research Richard Roth and where he’s coming from …
Go Elaine! Long live the ACJ!
First word out of one of the cochairs mouth after Elaine’s excellent comprehensive report was: “Wow!”
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2015
Quote of the hearing (so far)/: “What the hell did you do with the money?” Reginald Jones-Sawyer.
Auntie Bureaucrat
March 11, 2015
Oh, I hate that I couldn’t watch this live!
wearyant
March 11, 2015
You’re so right, WendyD. That quote set the mood squarely. Hoshino is laboring to turn the tide at the moment.
I didn’t realize the SEC recommendations were turned into “directives” and then reworded! Thus they could be said to have been “completed.” LOL! Learning a lot from this hearing. And another interesting quote from the SEC report, “they talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk.” Thank you to whomever said that one — and the many others who put in their thoughts when asked about the SEC recommendations.
Hoshino is spinning rainbows and flowers … 😀
wearyant
March 11, 2015
My heart goes out to those still in harness, Auntie!!
Long live the ACJ and the JCW!
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2015
The revisionist history spewing from Martin Hoshino is unbelievable, even for the AOC. And note to Hoshino: the “culture” of the AOC is easily identifiable: fear, intimidation, and retaliation. The “performance” of that culture at 455 Golden Gate Avenue is alive and well, and is being permitted to continue under your administration, with the blessing of the Chief Justice. And you don’t have the luxury of 10 or 20 years to change that.
sharonkramer
March 11, 2015
ACJ Judge Fisher “Systemic flaws that go way beyond culture…. audit resulted in half measures…there is a race for the cure…that Band-Aid approach is not a cure.”
LA Superior Court Clerk “We are very skeptical of this branch leadership to reform themselves.”
by ??? If they are suppose to be leading by example, their setting an example of what not to do. Imperative need to audit the court construction fund.
Cordova, court employee. “People of CA deserve better.”
Boggs from SD Superior Court, Family Law “We’re not doing a good job of providing access to justice to the public”.
Wosniak, labor relations in San Diego, Riverside. “Want to know why we’re taking the death by a thousand cuts, but we see egregious spending by the AOC.”
OC employees assoc “Poor decision making and hubris by AOC has led to reduction of (um…everything?)
Presiding Judge Merced County “Because of my involvement in the SEC, JC put me on the JCounsel. Its going to take time. “This CJ is committed to seeing change”….With Hoshino I assure you these changes will take place
wearyant
March 11, 2015
Thanks for the quotes, Sharon. Weren’t all the statements from the “members of the public” excellent?! It’s worth a listen on Friday if anyone missed it live. As one speaker said, Elaine is my new hero!
Long live the ACJ, the JCW and Elaine Howle!
sharonkramer
March 11, 2015
Yea, they were great. Missed the first part. Did Sawyer-Jones really say, “What the hell did you do with the money?” If so, that’s gotta be the best quote of the day.
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2015
Yes, Assembly Member Reginald Jones-Sawyer really did say: “What the hell did you do with the money?” And that’s a quote.
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2015
“This CH is committed to seeing change. With Hoshino I assure you these changes will take place.”
Hahahahaha. ROFLMAO. Is she going to “see” those changes flying by outside of her CHP chauffeured town car? And “change” from Hoshino? Within days of assuming his new position at the AOC he was singing the praises of how “democratic” branch administration is. His tap-dancing, doublespeak, revisionist history, smoke-and-mirrors performance before the State Legislature was even worse.
The only way change and reform is going to happen at 455 Golden Gate Avenue is if, and when, it is forced on them. Everyone should have figured this out with CCMS.
Long live the ACJ.
sharonkramer
March 11, 2015
It looks unlikely any of them will ever get prison time since no one dares describe the “mismanagement” as crime when seeking change. So….how about reform school?
Auntie Bureaucrat
March 11, 2015
I’m watching right now at calchannel.com’s video on demand. I’m just at the opening comments, but have to say what most here already know… Mr. Jones-Sawyer completely rocks.
unionman575
March 12, 2015
Reggie keep it up!
😉
sharonkramer
March 11, 2015
“What the hell did you do with the money?” Sounds like a good blog title for JCW
courtflea
March 11, 2015
So not having watched the hearing what was the final result?
sharonkramer
March 11, 2015
The final result was the the JC and their staff are going to clean up their act for the good of the public. And this time, they really, really mean it.
Judicial Council Watcher
March 11, 2015
…followed by a long line of people in public comment that universally indicated they’ve heard it all before and that the legislature needs to take their shot at reforming the bureaucracy….
JusticeCalifornia
March 11, 2015
lol. Team George has been saying that for what– 15 years at least?
JusticeCalifornia
March 11, 2015
kudos to the legislature for stepping up, in very many ways. They are finding out for themselves what we all have known about the branch for a very long time. And members are stepping up to act on it.
Bravo.
And now the Guv and AG need to face well-documented facts and stop defending the indefensible.
sharonkramer
March 11, 2015
Agreed. That’s what else came out. The legislature DOES HAVE a real shot at reforming the courts at this point in time.
courtflea
March 11, 2015
Did they suggest how? Any resolutions to act? Or was this another round of bluff and bluster and hemming and hawing, with the end result being the same old shit…that is no one doing anything?
JusticeCalifornia
March 11, 2015
Legislators are stepping up.
Judicial Council Watcher
March 11, 2015
The archive link courtesy of the techies in the basement
http://calchannel.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=2625
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2015
Today’s installment of Tani’s Follies. Published late today, Wednesday, March 11, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
‘What the Hell Did You Do With All That Money?’ Asks CA Legislator
By MARIA DINZEO
SACRAMENTO (CN) – California legislators laid into the administrative bureaucracy of California’s courts at a hearing in the capitol on Wednesday, where State Auditor Elaine Howle presented a highly critical audit documenting the bureaucracy’s waste of hundreds of millions of dollars that should have gone to keeping the courts running during the state’s long-running budget crisis.
“There’s probably close to $2 billion that have been pushed into the courts. So the real question is, ‘What the hell did you do with that money?'” Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer said.
Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat from Los Angeles, was the audit’s legislative sponsor.
At the hearing’s outset, he said that when he joined the State Assembly two years ago, the Legislature and the governor had already begun to pour a cumulative total of $2 billion back into the judiciary’s coffers as the California economy began to turn around.
With the new director of the AOC waiting to speak, the legislator he said he has not seen any fundamental change in the judicial bureaucracy. “I’m still not comfortable that there’s been any accountability,” said Jones Sawyer. “There seems to be relatively no oversight, and there’s no transparency.”
The hearing is the result of years of criticism from judges and legislators over the AOC’s spendthrift ways during a period of severe cuts to the courts, as California’s economy and its budget constricted.
Thousands of trial court employees were laid off and courthouses shuttered up and down the state, but all the while the massive bureaucracy at the top of the court system cut little from its budget while pouring $500 million into a controversial statewide IT project.
Legislators, judges and union members hoped that with a new director appointed in the fall, things would change. The new director, Martin Hoshino, also spoke before the committee and declared that progress is coming slowly, as Service Employees International Union representative Michelle Castro wished the director well but added that the bureaucracy has “a very entrenched culture of poor decision-making and hubris.”
Howle’s audit, released in January, pointed to an excessive $30 million spent over a four-year period on salaries for employees of the judicial bureaucracy, the Administrative Office of the Courts, as well as $386 million spent by the AOC over four years on statewide services that nearly half of California’s 58 trial courts don’t use, including $186 million on contractors and consultants.
“Despite budget shortfalls and budget cuts, the AOC continued to provide its employees with unreasonably high salaries and generous benefits. There is a disconnect about what the AOC is doing and what the courts need,” Howle said, testifying Wednesday before a panel of lawmakers from the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, a budget sub-committee chaired by Jones Sawyer and Assemblymember Mark Stone who chairs the assembly’s judiciary committee.
She pointed to an internal investigation of the bureaucracy by a team of 14 judges back in 2012 called the Strategic Evaluation Committee, appointed by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye to address wastefulness and mismanagement in the bureaucracy. In a lengthy report saying the bureaucracy needed to return to its first job of serving the courts of California, the SEC committee came up with 124 recommendations for reform.
Howle confirmed the criticism from many observers who said those reforms never got off the ground, and described the SEC report’s conclusions as similar to her own.
“The language is much quite frankly, stronger than in our report. It was interesting to us to see how similar many of the conclusions and recommendations were between the two reports, and that’s where my concern is raised, personally,” Howle said. “That report came out in May 2012. There has not been much progress in some of these key areas.”
“Here we are in March 2015, almost 3 years later,” she continued. “There needs to be fundamental change at the AOC. There’s some cultural change, with all due respect, that needs to happen at the executive level. They talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk.”
Jones-Sawyer asked Howle, “There’s probably an entrenched group of people in the system that are comfortable with the status quo. Did you get a sense there is anyone who will take the bull by the horns?”
Howle pointed to the recent hiring of Martin Hoshino from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as the new AOC Director, as a good start.
“Certainly Martin was a good hire. But he’s only one person.”
While Jones-Sawyer had opened the hearing by saying he was “ecstatic about the audit,” not all legislators shared his enthusiasm.
Senator Richard Roth (D-Riverside), said that in the context of a total judiciary budget of $3 billion, a waste of $30 million does not compare to the much greater sum of $500 million wasted on the Court Case Management System, a software project declared dead in 2012 by the Judicial Council.
“If the total is $30 million on a $3 billion budget, while we should obviously be sensitive to that and urge the judicial branch to be more efficient,” said Roth. “It’s somewhat less impactful if it were $500 million and another computer project,” he said.
When it came his turn to speak, Hoshino defended his agency and said reform is underway.
“We have ended employer payment of employee retirement contributions, the office directors will no longer receive the option of receiving reimbursement for parking, and of the vehicles people spoke of, we have eliminated one third of those 66 vehicles,” he said. “For the balance of the recommendations, there are bigger, more systemic things that are getting into more of the strategic planning and definition of services. They take more time.”
Changing the longstanding culture of the AOC may take many more years, he argued.
“Culture change is measured in big chunks of time. It’s not going to get done in six months. These things will happen in 10 years, 20 years,” he said. “It’s really about getting the right vision and the right set of values. I tend to focus just on performance. Once you know what everyone is supposed to do and you set the expectations, this thing happens that we end up calling cultural change.”
In an interview after the hearing, Michelle Castro with the SEIU praised the changes Hoshino brought in his first months on the job, but said they haven’t been nearly enough.
“Those were a good start, but there’s more to do,” she said. “People feel really good about Hoshino, they have a lot of confidence in him. But it’s hard to separate the past form the current and the future, because the past has been so checkered. Everyone wants to give Martin a chance but he’s one person in an institution with a very entrenched culture of poor decision-making and hubris. We’re hoping he can be successful.”
As of now, she said, legislators are reluctant to pump more money into the judiciary if they sense that the money won’t be used to keep courts open. She added, “It’s going to be very hard for there to be more money coming beyond what the governor has already put into its budget.”
Jones-Sawyer’s budget committee is set to hold its own hearing on the audit. On Wednesday, he hinted at increased legislative control, saying, “Maybe we can even do some budget language to institutionalize this so we can ensure accountability and access to justice and transparency, all of those things.”
“There’s a larger branch of government that hangs over all three branches and that’s the people, and we manage the people’s money,” he said. “And at the end of the day, that’s what all three are answering to.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/03/11/what-the-hell-did-you-do-with-all-that-money-asks-ca-legislator.htm
And in response to the question “There’s probably an entrenched group of people in the system that are comfortable with the status quo. Did you get a sense there is anyone who will take the bull by the horns?” here is a telling answer: After the end of the hearing, in the corridor outside the hearing room, members of the Hoshino/AOC entourage were overheard expressing their unhappiness and resentment that Reginald Jones-Sawyer and the members of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and the Assembly Budget Subcommittee 5 didn’t give them more credit and commendations for all their efforts and “significant changes” 455 Golden Gate Avenue has made since the last audit report came out in January.
Long live the ACJ.
Lando
March 11, 2015
Now it’s going to take 10-20 years to change the culture of the AOC ? If true then why hasn’t Hoshino cleared out the very managers HRH-2 promoted when the ill fated J Jahr regime began? If the AOC is such a dysfunctional mess that it will take until 2035 to fix , Mr Hoshino has provided us with one of the strongest arguments to close down 455 Golden Gate by the end of business tomorrow.
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2015
” If the AOC is such a dysfunctional mess that it will take until 2035 to fix , Mr Hoshino has provided us with one of the strongest arguments to close down 455 Golden Gate by the end of business tomorrow.”
Agreed.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
JusticeCalifornia
March 12, 2015
agreed. If we were talking about a private business, the whole crew would have been bounced and new management brought in.
Lando
March 11, 2015
As the insiders won’t do the right thing and close the AOC tomorrow or ever, the legislature should step in and appoint a Receiver who could shut down the AOC because hardworking Californians don’t have 20 years to wait for Hoshino and the insiders to change the AOC’s culture of arrogance and massive abuse of taxpayer dollars. Despite the waste of over 500 million on CCMS the insiders are still spending millions on case management. Despite the revelation that the AOC has 66 cars they should have never purchased for any reason , Hoshino has only seen fit to reduce the fleet by a third. Despite the suffering of the trial courts and significant layoffs , HRH-2 still rides all over the state in her CHP driven car. Despite the SEC report the AOC won’t close the crystal palace and move to less costly space in Sacramento. And Mr Hoshino wonders why he wasn’t lauded ?
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2015
Also published late today, Wednesday, March 11, from The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl Miller:
Lawmakers Lash Judicial Leaders Over Audit Findings
Cheryl Miller, The Recorder
March 11, 2015
|
SACRAMENTO — State lawmakers offered pointed remarks to judicial branch leaders Wednesday in the first hearing to review a January audit that chastised the judiciary for hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable spending.
Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, the Los Angeles Democrat who pushed for the audit, said the 90-page report confirmed his concerns about state funding not making it to the trial court level.
“The real question is, what the hell did you do with that money?” Jones-Sawyer asked a group of judicial branch executives assembled at the Capitol hearing. “What did you do to effectively manage the courts in a way that we did not have to close courts, that people do not have to travel 100 miles or more to get access to justice?”
Jones-Sawyer’s district includes a courthouse that closed due to budget cuts, a fact he hammered home while pointing out that legislators and the governor in recent years have restored some of the $1 billion siphoned from the courts during the recession. The assemblyman chairs a subcommittee that oversees the judiciary’s annual budget.
“Right now the Judicial Council has analysis paralysis,” Jones-Sawyer said, noting the many committees and task forces the council employs. “I’m still not comfortable there’s real accountability.”
The audit, prepared by state Auditor Elaine Howle, found that the judiciary’s administrative arm, formerly known as the Administrative Office of the Courts, spends lavishly on executive salaries, perks, consultants and temporary employees with inadequate oversight from the Judicial Council. Howle also found a “disconnect” between the services administrators offer the courts and the services leaders of those courts consider critically needed. She also concluded that at least some of the $386 million in trial court money the administrative agency spent on goods and services should have been paid for by state operation funding, leaving fewer dollars for local courts that have slashed services and shuttered courtrooms.
Howle said she was particularly disturbed that many of her findings were similar to those made in 2012 by the judiciary’s Strategic Evaluation Committee, and yet they still have not been addressed.
“There are some cultural changes, with all due respect, that need to happen,” the auditor said.
Merced County Superior Court Judge Brian McCabe, one of the primary authors of the SEC report cited by Howle, told the committee that “change is underway.”
“Is more needed? You bet,” he said. “Can it be done? It will be done. And I can report to you that this chief justice is committed to seeing change.”
In light of the audit, Martin Hoshino, administrative director of the Judicial Council, announced last month that he was eliminating certain retirement payment perks and parking privileges for executives. An audit-criticized car fleet is also being downsized, and a leave cash-out program has been suspended until at least next year. Other potential changes, including the method for allocating expenses within the branch, are being weighed.
In a March 6 letter to Howle, Hoshino said six of the 22 recommendations made in her audit had been “fully implemented.” A spokeswoman for Howle said Wednesday that the auditor had not verified those claims yet.
Hoshino told lawmakers that true culture change in the agency would take years, perhaps a decade or two. Performance changes, or adjustments to “the nuts and bolts” of the administration, would happen faster, he said.
“We don’t have time to wait for five or 10 years for these things to be implemented,” Assemblyman Mike Gipson, D-Carson, shot back. “We have 4,000 employees who have lost their jobs. We have 200 courtrooms that stand vacant as a result of what has transpired. We have an audit report before us that outlines significant deficiencies in the structure of the organization. And so I would simply say we don’t have time.”
http://www.therecorder.com/home/id=1202720360459/Lawmakers-Lash-Judicial-Leaders-Over-Audit-Findings?mcode=1202617072607&curindex=1
Long live the ACJ.
courtflea
March 11, 2015
Ok i watched the whole thing. Yada Yada yada. I am not impressed. So far all talk and most likely no action. A bunch of glad handing and back slapping if you ask me between the members of the legislature and the AOC. Frankly the new AOC Director Is Worse THAN Vickery with the double speak. I’m not holding my breath for any changes.
Wendy Darling
March 11, 2015
I’m not holding my breath for any changes either, Flea. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
March 12, 2015
Agreed, Flea. And the culture would change quickly with sets of handcuffs being clamped on, to hell with the niceties.
Lando
March 12, 2015
Wendy, many thanks for posting those two great articles about the State Audit and hearings today. Everyone here should find it fascinating that HRH-2 and her insiders claim she is making progress and committed to reform while her chief aide decamp says it could take 20 years to bring about ” culture ” change in the AOC. Hoshino’s claim is the perfect cover for any lack of meaningful change and reform which is exactly what HRH-2 and her 455 Golden Gate minions really want. It’s the oldest political grifters game going , the Potomac two-step..
sharonkramer
March 12, 2015
“Culture change is measured in big chunks of time [in jail for those who profited from creating this culture of fraud, waste and abuse, while stealing from the public]. It’s [the prison time] not going to get done in six months. These things will happen in 10 years, 20 years,”
NOTHING is going to change until some are held personally and criminally accountable for what the hell they did with all that money.
I would expect that the wheels are in motion of finding a way to get rid of Jones-Sawyer from the legislative process.
Wendy Darling
March 12, 2015
This is what drives “cultural change” in the kind of situation that exists at 455 Golden Gate Avenue: search warrants, indictments, arrest warrants, handcuffs, and criminal charges. When and if that happens at 455 Golden Gate Avenue, cultural change will follow immediately, and it won’t take 10 or 20 years to be apparent. Just look at the city of Bell as an example of that.
The current culture at the AOC is one of lawlessness. End the lawlessness, and that will change the culture. Good luck finding someone, anyone, willing to do that. I’m betting it won’t be Martin “It’s all so democratic here” Hoshino.
Long live the ACJ.
sharonkramer
March 12, 2015
Can I give 100 thumbs up somehow to Wendy’s above comment?
“This is what drives “cultural change” in the kind of situation that exists at 455 Golden Gate Avenue: search warrants, indictments, arrest warrants, handcuffs, and criminal charges.”
Anonymous
March 12, 2015
See how fast culture evolves when transparency and real accountability are injected into the equation. If people know they can get away with just about anything as AOC leadership has been led to believe, if they are all but totally immune because they are governed only by the rules of court then self-dealing, graft and kickbacks in this great scheme are the norm.
These are the real rules that govern the judicial council…..