Brace yourselves for another round of budget cuts.
Our trial courts get their money from a patchwork of funds and accounts, each of which is designated for certain often vaguely defined purposes, and each of which has its own set of revenue sources. Two of these funds are in big trouble—and so are we.
At last Friday’s meeting, the Judicial Council got an update on the State Trial Court Improvement and Modernization Fund (IMF). IMF money helps pay for a host of services, among them: self-help centers; judicial education; the Complex Civil Litigation Program; various ongoing technology projects, including Sustain, Phoenix, Oracle, and the California Courts Technology Center; private counsel for judicial branch litigation; and trial court security.
It’s hard to get a fix on the health of the IMF prior to this year. According to the AOC’s last annual report to the Legislature, the IMF was $26 million in the black. But at a Council meeting almost exactly one year ago, the AOC predicted a deficit in the IMF of $13.1 million for Fiscal Year 2014-2015. Now the news is unequivocally grim: Given current levels of spending and the latest revenue projections, the IMF will run a $16 million deficit by the end of Fiscal Year 2015-2016.
The AOC and the Trial Court Budget Advisory Committee are recommending “serious program adjustments” in order to bridge the gap. More specifically, they’re proposing a raft of cuts totaling $10.8 million, including the elimination of $4 million in funding for the Complex Civil Litigation Program. In addition, the committee is recommending that expenditures for several programs—including $1.2 million in courthouse security grants—be shifted to other funds. The IMF will no longer transfer $20 million each year to the Trial Court Trust Fund, which means that the trial courts will have to get the money from someplace else. Even with all those cuts and shifts, the IMF will still be running a “structural deficit” of $13 million. If you want to burrow into the numbers, you can find them among the hundreds of pages of materials submitted to the Council at this link. You can hear the presentation on the IMF here. Maria Dinzeo’s article in Courthouse News on the crisis in the IMF is reprinted below.
The IMF is being haunted by the ghost of CCMS, the troubled technology program that cost the branch over half a billion dollars before it ran aground. IMF money has been supporting those courts that are still running the remnants of CCMS. Now the Council wants to shift those costs to those local courts that were unfortunate enough to have trusted the AOC to meet their IT needs.
The IMF is also plagued by the drop in revenue coming from the criminal fines and fees. Based on the estimates for 2014-2015, the annual revenue stream from fines and fees—more than half of the IMF’s total revenue—will have shrunk by over $10 million since the end of Fiscal Year 2012-2013.
But the IMF isn’t the only fund in trouble. The Immediate and Critical Needs Account (ICNA) of the State Court Facilities Construction Fund is hemorrhaging money too.
In 2008, when his influence was at its height, then-Chief Justice Ronald George prevailed upon the Legislature to pass Senate Bill 1407. This ambitious bill authorized the issuance of $5 billion in bonds to finance courthouse construction. The money to back all these bonds is supposed to come primarily from criminal assessments and penalties: the $30 fines we are authorized to impose for each misdemeanor or felony conviction and the $35 we can impose on traffic tickets. That money goes into the ICNA. (Gov. Code, § 70371.5.)
We’re now learning that once again, the AOC underestimated revenues from fines and fees. The Immediate and Critical Needs Account is running on empty.
Last December, AOC staff gave a presentation to the members of the Court Facilities Advisory Committee. You can find the minutes of the meeting, approved last March, at this link. The presenters painted a bleak picture of the ICNA’s future.
For starters, a big chunk of ICNA revenues are going to pay the annual service charge for the extravagant Long Beach Courthouse, which will average $61 million each year for the next 35 years. The AOC grossly underestimated the tab for Long Beach, then wrongly assumed that the Legislature would pick it up. Then another $50 million is being redirected to the General Fund. And we’ve had to raid the ICNA repeatedly to support trial court operations.
And now, as with the IMF, we’re finding that income from court fees is once again falling below expectations–$20 million below. On March 24, 2015, the Court Facilities Advisory Committee and the Courthouse Cost Reduction Subcommittee held a joint meeting. You can find the materials at this link. Apparently, revenues are 22 percent off their peak in Fiscal Year 2010-2011—and we haven’t hit bottom yet.
So what are we going to get for our $5 billion? A handful of opulent palaces such as Long Beach and San Diego, some of which we can’t afford to staff, while older buildings crumble.
No matter how you slice it, the AOC looks terrible. Their revenue estimates were wildly off base. Their political calculations were worse. Their judgment in prioritizing, planning, and financing courthouse construction projects is, to say the least, questionable.
The SB 1407 bond money needs to be audited. The entire construction program needs to be audited. An audit of the AOC’s non-construction operations—just a “bucket of water in Lake Tahoe,” according to one Judicial Council member—uncovered tens of millions in waste. Just imagine what an audit of a $5 billion AOC-run program might turn up.
Directors, Alliance of California Judges
_______________________________
Courthouse News Service
4/17/2015
Courts’ Improvement Fund Broke, Cuts Coming Judicial Council Says
By MARIA DINZEO
(CN) – With a crucial judiciary coffer running at a deficit, California’s Judicial Council met Friday to deliver a painful blow of funding cuts to trial court security, technology, court-appointed counsel for juveniles and complex civil litigation.
The Improvement and Modernization Fund, for years a source of funding for court technology projects, interpreters, court security, judicial education, subscriptions to publications, jury management, self-help centers and a host of other projects and programs, is $11 million in the hole.
“There is no money in the IMF,” Judge Laurie Earl of Sacramento gravely told the council. “Any action you do today needs to be based on there’s no money in the IMF. This fund runs at a deficit. It has a structural imbalance and we need to act now or we’ll be forced off the cliff that is looming. The cliff is here and we are standing at the edge of it.”
Earl chairs the council’s trial court budget advisory committee, and is co-chair of its revenue and expenditure subcommittee.
On Friday, Earl’s committee recommended that the council approve about $10.8 million in cuts, which will eliminate funding for nine programs, including publication subscriptions, trial court security grants, alternative dispute resolution centers and the complex civil litigation program, which funds complex civil litigation staff in the superior courts of Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange, San Francisco, and Santa Clara County.
The elimination of complex civil litigation funding from the IMF will save $4 million, the committee estimated. Future funding will be based on workload need.
The recommendations were a last-ditch effort to save the fund from insolvency, but the notion of de-funding programs like trial court security and complex civil litigation did not sit well with many council members.
Attorney Debra Pole said she spent Thursday dealing with a deluge of phone calls and emails from complex civil litigation attorneys who asked that the issue be tabled for further study.
“I cannot repeat in this open forum some of the statements that I got regarding these recommendations from people who do this every day,” she said. “People feel very, very, very strongly about this issue,” Pole said.
Judge Emily Elias, a judge in the Los Angeles Superior Court’s complex civil litigation department said, “I got off an airplane yesterday morning and a lawyer said to me, ‘We hear that you are eliminating complex and why are you all doing that?’ ”
Judge Brian McCabe of Merced said he wasn’t pleased with slashing of $1.2 million from security. He said extra security funding was crucial, since he and 150 others recently witnessed the fatal shooting in his courtroom of a man who “assaulted the court with two 10-inch blades.”
“In essence, we are choosing between whether we cut off our left hand or right hand, but either choice is not going to be pleasant and it is going to hurt,” McCabe said.
He added: “Notwithstanding, taking that local hat off and putting the statewide one on, I get it. I get that we have a deficit and we have to address it. I get that there is going to be some painful decisions here and that this is meant as a temporary stop-gap until we can figure out some either funding solutions or better mechanisms.”
The council also voted to cut five courts loose from IMF support to maintain remnants of the now-defunct software project called the Court Case Management System, at about $7 million a year. San Diego, Orange County, Ventura County and Sacramento signed on early to the project, which was intended to unite the state’s 58 trial courts under one case-tracking software system.
The project was terminated in 2012 amidst damning criticism from legislators, trial judges, court employees and union leaders as a costly and technologically unwieldy boondoggle. The courts that are currently using V3, the latest version of the system that the Legislature allowed the Judicial Council to support with the IMF, are all looking to replace their systems with software from vendors like Tyler Technologies and Thomson Reuters.
The plan is to incrementally wean the courts off the funding over four years, but the question remains as to how these courts will pay for their new systems.
Ventura County is particularly concerned, Second Appellate District Court Judge Judith Ashmann-Gerst told the council. Ashmann-Gerst, the council’s liaison to the Ventura court, said the court is interested in a deal with Tyler, but has no way to pay for it. “The court feels it stuck its neck out when they signed up for V3 and now they need $3.5 million to go on to Tyler,” she said.
Ventura Presiding Judge Brian Back said the court has been in talks with Tyler for at least six months, but “we have no funds.”
The council unanimously voted to withdraw funding for V3 in 2016 and its tech committee will begin looking for alternate funding sources for the next three years.
Council members also voted to change the method of allocating funding for court-appointed attorneys for juveniles to be based on caseloads, but will revisit the issue next year.
sharonkramer
April 20, 2015
In addition to the dire need for an extensive comprehensive audit of the JC and its staff, two suggestions:
1. Find the $500M that went missing from the court construction fund. Get it back via a criminal investigation, and get rid of any AOC/JC persons who are still here that were involved or covered-up in the theft. (many of the same people who brought us CCMS)
2. Immediately move the JC and its staff out of the crystal palace in San Francisco and into Sacramento – while thinning the number of employees.
wearyant
April 20, 2015
“The SB 1407 bond money needs to be audited. The entire construction program needs to be audited.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Above, an understatement from the Alliance. The Alliance’s letter would be appropriate for an editorial in all California’s newspapers.
As for cutting security in our trial courtrooms, the pencil pushers try this almost on an annual basis. This is a penny saving, pound foolish idea. Lives are at stake, those of our judges, lawyers and litigants and the public, for that matter, if security is reduced one iota. And in these trying times, the long waits at the courthouses, tempers are frayed and on edge as it is. When will reason prevail?
Thank you, Alliance of California Judges and Judicial Council Watcher!
courtflea
April 20, 2015
Time to cull the herd at the AOC. Why are they not talking about that especially if the are looking at the ” state wide” picture?
unionman575
April 20, 2015
Shut that JC/AOC shed down.
😉
Wendy Darling
April 20, 2015
Cesspool. Not shed. Cesspool.
Long live the ACJ.
Maxrebo5
April 20, 2015
It looks really grim financially for CA Courts. All of the funds are depleted because caseloads are down significantly since 2009. With filings down the branch is bringing in less fines and fee revenue but it’s expenses remain high. The AOC forecast case filings would have increases but their projections were way off.
As a result, the IMF has already gone bust. The JC handled that shortfall last week by making painful cuts to operations, not to the AOC, but that is just a warm up. Two Chief Justices promised the public the branch could pay back the five billion dollars in bonds using fines and fee revenues. No new taxes or general fund money would be used to pay for the courthouses was how the bonds were sold to the public. With the fine/fee revenue way down those promises are about to be broken.
I think CA courts are totally overextended. The branch is basically a debtor with too many expenses and not enough money coming in. It can’t declare bankruptcy to get out of it’s obligations either so it’s in a real jam. The JC can’t reduce the cost of those buildings as they are fixed obligations. Savings will have to come from trial court operations or from cuts to the AOC to make up for the gap in fines/fees.
Tani will say the courts can’t possibly cut their way out of this mess. She’ll say the only realistic option is for the legislature/governor to give the branch more money. That’s a very tough sell though. The state has to have a balanced budget and increasing court funding means some other state program is going to have to be cut or taxes will have to be raised.
Team George is basically behaving like a Wall Street bank (too important to fail). I think they plan to speak with one voice, as they always do, in order to lobby the state to bail them out. The longer Team George is able to run the branch the bigger the mess is for the state to clean up.
unionman575
April 21, 2015
“Team George is basically behaving like a Wall Street bank (too important to fail). ”
😉
Wendy Darling
April 20, 2015
“More money, more money, more money” – it’s the only thing Queen Feckless and branch administration knows how to say. After at least 3 investigations and 2 audits by the BSA evidencing over and over again that branch administration repeatedly wastes hundreds of millions of dollars, on things that have little or no value to trial court operations, the only thing Tani and company responds with are cries of poverty.
More money is not going to fix what is really wrong in and with judicial branch administration, an everyone that matters in Sacramento has figured this out. The folks flying the airplane 455 Golden Gate Avenue do not deserve, and cannot be trusted with, one more cent of public money. The State Legislature needs to find a way to fund the trial courts directly, and not have trial court funding funneled, and fleeced, through 455 Golden Gate Avenue. Until and unless that happens, any “additional funding” to the California Judicial Branch is just throwing good money after bad.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
Lando
April 20, 2015
Thanks Wendy. That is a cogent and powerful summary of everything wrong at the Crystal Palace.
unionman575
April 21, 2015
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/aecomm-20150428-agenda.pdf
wearyant
April 21, 2015
Open to the public unless closed. Yeah, that pretty well covers it. It’s a new and gentle world. 😁
unionman575
April 21, 2015
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/aecomm-20150428-materials.pdf
unionman575
April 21, 2015
http://www.courts.ca.gov/tcbac.htm
Trial Court Budget Advisory Committee
May 18, 2015 Meeting
10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Judicial Council’s San Francisco Office
455 Golden Gate Avenue/3rd Floor/Judicial Council Boardroom
Public Call-In Number: 1-877-820-7831,
Passcode: 1682324
July 6, 2015 Meeting
10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Judicial Council’s San Francisco Office
455 Golden Gate Avenue/3rd Floor/Judicial Council Boardroom
Public Call-In Number: 1-877-820-7831,
Passcode: 1682324
Donna Callison
April 21, 2015
Why in heaven’s name isn’t that crook Ron George and his cohorts brought up on charges of misappropriation of public funds, gross mismanagement, and other acts of arrogance. They need to spend their retirement days in prison until they pay back all of the millions they wasted on that stupid computer system. And our CJ: she truly is nothing more than a Ron George in a skirt:(
Judicial Council Watcher
April 21, 2015
In case you haven’t already figured it out, those are grounds for an award and a promotion at the judicial council….
Employee1
April 21, 2015
Can we talk about why Curt Child is really leaving the AOC? Good riddance….
Judicial Council Watcher
April 21, 2015
Needed to find out more about this and I have….. look for another thread shortly.
Nathaniel Woodhull
April 21, 2015
History = Inquiry, knowledge that may only be acquired by investigation. It is the study of the past and how it relates to the human condition…
History is something that both Ronald George and Tani Cantil-Sakauye do not want anyone to explore. Each has relied upon the fact that with the passage of time, certain of us retire and they are then left to re-write history in their own image to the new judges that they have “trained”.
The current economic crisis was not in any way unforeseen. It was highly predictable and the folly of the former-AOC’s predictions relating to revenue streams from fines and fees was pointed out to them, along with it being pointed out directly to King George and William Vickrey, at the time they were initially being put forward. Those of us who dared raise questions of his Lordship were immediately made examples of, and everything was done that could be done to ensure that our careers did not further advance. Now, most of the dinosaurs standing in the way of the vision of “progress” promised by HRH-1 and Tani have retired, so they are free to say and do just about anything.
When I became a Municipal Court Judge, things seemed pretty bright. There was a collegial atmosphere on the bench, we collaborated with local politicians regarding programs and court funding and we had face-to-face meetings with local lawyers, service providers and public interest groups. Over the years, many innovative programs were developed to respond to the needs of our constituents. While there is always room for improvement, things ran pretty darn well and people were, well…happy. Muni Court was also a great place to learn how to become a judge without the higher stakes often involved in Superior Court work. It was a high volume and judges were forced to sink or swim. Those that couldn’t cut it remained where they could to less damage or they got out.
When I was later elevated to the Superior Court, the same collegial atmosphere was present. I was seasoned and ready to go, unlike today when some new judges are often thrown into assignments in practice areas that they know nothing about, no interest in, nor do they have any idea how to control a courtroom.
Things used to be dealt with at a local level. Tip O’Neal’s catch phrase, “All politics is local” was quite true back then. Boards of Supervisors and Court Administrations worked together to solve funding problems and fund unique programs to deal with local issues. While a handful of small courts (Cow Counties) sometimes experienced funding issues toward the end of their fiscal years, on balance, funding wasn’t a tremendous problem Statewide. It was extremely rare to find lawyers from one jurisdiction coming across the state to appear in another jurisdiction, unless they had a history of doing so, or they had associated local counsel. In all my years of practice and experience as a judge I never became aware of a problem regarding the “lack of standardization” between trial courts. If there was a problem, the problem could have been resolved by the development of a Rule of Court.
The AOC at one time had somewhere between 275 and 350 employees throughout the State of California. When judges needed to talk to someone at the AOC they picked up the phone, questions were asked and answers were given. Now a judge is supposed to go to their Presiding Judge and/or Court CEO to find out if they could get permission to contact the specific bureaucrat in that cubical who reportedly had responsibility over the issue to be presented. More often than not, an answer wasn’t available until it is “staffed” by a group, committee or sub-committee. The ultimate answer oftentimes was couched with so many disclaimers one wondered why the question was asked in the first place. At branch meetings, there was a time when AOC staff didn’t seem to travel in herds of at least five. (Why do at least five AOC staffers have to attend every Ethics training session, sitting at a table in the back, giving everyone the sense that they are being watched by the SS or NKVD.)
But, things are much better now. Just ask HRH-1 or HRH-2… Hmm, I’ve got an idea. Maybe we could design a tier-system of courts in each county. A smaller court could handle the matters of less significance and new judges could learn there. We could call that, let’s say, a Municipal Court. Then, we could have another court to handle more significant cases and we could call that a Superior Court. Judges with more experience, those having proven themselves, could work in this court. You would only need one administration for both local courts given the advances in technology. Next, the State of California could direct funding to each of these local courts and then the Presiding Judges in each court could work with their local elected political leaders, say their Boards of Supervisors and County Managers, to enact programs that would benefit the local community in the pursuit of serving justice. Local leaders could also decide when and under what circumstances new facilities would be needed and where they would be built. We could eliminate hundreds upon hundreds of unnecessary jobs at 455 Golden Gate Avenue. Countless forests could then be saved and the planet would be a nicer place. Hey, this could be my Earth Day message….
wearyant
April 21, 2015
LOL! Bless you, Nat. Thanks for the bittersweet walk down nostalgia lane. (I was asked by the great Sheila once if I was “against progress” and unfortunately rendered speechless by a flood of emotion. No, Tip was right. Have we “progressed” so far that there is no hope? I’ll go with WendyD and UMan above; shut that cesspool down now! And long live the Alliance.
Wendy Darling
April 21, 2015
So good to hear from you General! You have been missed!
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
April 22, 2015
And by the way General Woodhull, don’t you know that things are “great” in the California Judicial Branch? That’s what Queen Feckless says: things are just “great.” Except for the money thing, but other than that things are just “great.” And the State Legislature “has to fund us” so the money thing will get taken care of, one way or another. And then things will be really, really great. And Ron George? He’s “great” too. Queen Feckless’ own words – the Great Ron George.
Yep, things are just “great” in the California Judicial Branch.
Long live the ACJ.
sharonkramer
April 21, 2015
It’s the tired same story over and over again. When unethical and sometimes criminal acts are committed in the California legal system; those who work to stop the damage try to do so without acknowledging that the acts were unethical and criminal.
“Misappropriation” is a word used to white-washing theft. When white-washing occurs, no one is ever punished for criminal acts.
If you don’t punish gov’t employees who commit unethical and criminal acts, it sends a clear message to other unethical employees that they have carte blanche to continue to defraud the public — and if they get caught, the worst punishment they will receive will be tax-payer funded retirement checks.
Simply retiring unethical people like George, Vickery, Turner and Curtis will stop the systemic ethics problems in the Cal courts. To restore a functioning CA judicial system its time to change direction, to stop white-washing crime, and to hold those who have destroyed the branch personally accountable.
Massive amounts of fraud, waste and abuse have been exposed thru multiple BSA audits in recent years. Its time to stop encouraging it to happen in the future by white-washing crime.
Its time for the CA Atty General and/or the FBI to use the information obtained by the BSA audits as a foundation; and to commence criminal investigations of exactly how public funds have been able to be “misappropriated” in the branch in the past decade.
Otherwise, no punishment for crime = more crime in the future.
sharonkramer
April 21, 2015
Typo. Meant to say “Simply retiring unethical people like George, Vickery, Turner and Curtis will NOT stop the systemic ethics problems in the Cal courts.
Wendy Darling
April 21, 2015
Today’s installment of Tani’s Follies. Published today, Tuesday, April 21, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Longtime Lobbyist for Court Bureaucracy Takes His Leave
By MARIA DINZEO
(CN) – The longtime lobbyist for California’s judicial bureaucracy, Curt Child, is leaving his post at the end of the month.
Child’s departure comes about eight months after Martin Hoshino was hired as director of the roughly 800-person court administrative office based in San Francisco. In a Monday memo to members of the Judicial Council, Hoshino lauded Child’s contributions to the judiciary, saying, “Curt has brought great energy and commitment to his leadership role in service to the council and the judicial branch.”
An organization that has often criticized the size of the court bureaucracy welcomed the attrition at the top.
“The Alliance of California Judges has been calling for cuts to the AOC’s over-larded bureaucracy for years, all this while local court resources have been decimated,” said Judge Steve White, president of the Alliance.
Child was hired as head lobbyist for the court bureacracy in 2007, and he became chief operating officer in 2012. He came to the courts from the California Department of Child Support Services. He graduated from the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento in 1984.
His years with the court bureacracy were marked by his promotion and defense of a project to unite the state’s 58 trial courts under a single software system called the Court Case Management System
As years passed and the project soaked up hundreds of millions of dollars in scarce funds, the project came under a relentless barrage of criticism from legislators, trial judges, court employees and union leaders who said it was already obsolete while it continued to drain enormous sums from the court budget, at a time of fiscal crisis for the courts.
The State Auditor issued a scathing report in 2011 saying bureaucrats had exercised “poor management” of the IT project and disguised its true $1.9 billion cost. The Judicial Council pulled the plug a year later.
That same year, Child left the judicial bureaucracy’s lobbying arm to become its first chief operating officer, after a rushed and controversial agency restructuring, justified by a judicial committee’s report recommending cuts to the staff’s myriad leadership positions.
Child’s office tenure has been steeped in controversy, as his office was also involved in slipping an amendment into an under-the-radar trailer bill during the Legislature’s 2008-2009 session that would have seized authority from local courts over the selection of their presiding judges and court clerks.
The issue remained contentious for many years, as trial judges were stymied in their efforts to uncover the principle actors behind the gambit. But a series of emails eventually came out showing that an assistant director in the office of governmental affairs headed by Child had sent proposed legislative language to the state finance department, crossing out the authority of the trial courts to appoint their own clerks and presiding judges and giving it instead to the Judicial Council.
The council is dominated by the administrative staff, according to the State Auditor in her February audit.
On a separate matter of controversy, Child, as one of the old guard in the judicial bureaucracy, was able to keep his 22% pension contribution paid fully by the taxpayers. The lavish pension plan was reserved for the top 30 officials in the bureaucracy, a type of favoritism that is not allowed under federal law. State agencies are exempt from that law.
It has since been abolished for incoming officials, such as Hoshino, but the old guard continued to receive the benefit.
White with the Alliance in a comment made Tuesday pointed to the privations that have place on the trial courts because of budget cuts and excess spending by the judicial bureaucracy, including the hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on the software project.
“Today, for example, six of Sacramento’s courtrooms are dark because we haven’t the resources to provide necessary court reporters and other staff. Yesterday we had four such closed courts,” said White. “Tomorrow a new tale of triage will supply a different number of closed courts. So losing one of the highest paid staffers at the Administrative Office of the Courts, indeed in all of California government, seems a small step in the right direction.”
The California Judges Association did not respond to telephone and email requests for comment.
In his memo, Hoshino said Child would be taking a new job at an undisclosed “national firm” that will “enable him to continue to work with judges, courts, and the public to improve and extend access to justice and improve court efficiencies.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/04/21/longtime-lobbyist-for-court-bureaucracy-takes-his-leave.htm
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
April 21, 2015
Attrition at the top? I’ll believe it when I see it. I bet the evil-doers will replace Curt Child. And the top favored 30 are still receiving total contributions to their pensions at taxpayer expense? Monstrous! I suppose the telecommuting guy in Switzerland is still happily in place. I enjoyed the comment, over-larded bureaucracy. They’re also over-lauded.
Lando
April 21, 2015
Mr Child’s exit from 455 Golden Gate is long overdue. As AOC lobbyist he fought hard against the audit of CCMS. Some believe he was behind the ploy to have the Judicial Council and or the AOC to ” select” trial court Presiding Judges . For his efforts he was promoted to the highest levels of AOC management. His departure from the Crystal Palace may be a hopeful sign that real change is finally taking place within the AOC. It could also represent that problems in areas that Child oversaw are about to be exposed and he would the be the latest fall guy for the 455 Golden Gate ” insiders “, who never accept responsibility for anything.
MaxRebo5
April 21, 2015
One Curt down. One to go. It is long overdue for all of Team George to be gone. Hopefully this is just the beginning of Hoshino’s house cleaning. 😄
katy
April 22, 2015
“the old guard continued to receive the benefit” THERE’s a gross understatement.
1. “His years with the court bureaucracy were marked by his promotion and defense of a project to unite the state’s 58 trial courts under a single software system called the Court Case Management System. As years passed and the project soaked up hundreds of millions of dollars in scarce funds. The State Auditor issued a scathing report in 2011 saying bureaucrats had exercised “poor management” of the IT project and disguised its true $1.9 billion cost”
2. “his office was also involved in slipping an amendment into an under-the-radar trailer bill during the Legislature’s 2008-2009 session that would have seized authority from local courts over the selection of their presiding judges and court clerks…a series of emails eventually came out showing that an assistant director in the office of governmental affairs headed by Child had sent proposed legislative language to the state finance department, crossing out the authority of the trial courts to appoint their own clerks and presiding judges and giving it instead to the Judicial Council.
3.”Child, as one of the old guard in the judicial bureaucracy, was able to keep his 22% pension contribution paid fully by the taxpayers. The lavish pension plan was reserved for the top 30 officials in the bureaucracy, a type of favoritism that is not allowed under federal law. State agencies are exempt from that law.”
4. “In a Monday memo to members of the Judicial Council, Hoshino lauded Child’s contributions to the judiciary, saying, “Curt has brought great energy and commitment to his leadership role in service to the council and the judicial branch”
Simply retiring unethical people like George, Vickery, Turner and Curtis Child will NOT stop the systemic ethics problems in the Cal courts. No punishment for theft of public funds = more theft in the future.
WeightierMatter.com
May 26, 2015
Thank you JCW for your continued outstanding coverage and insight into the debacle that is devouring equal justice for California. It is becoming clearer each year that the JC/AOC patient cannot be healed. Its death could bring only relief to litigants and courts alike. We’re doing our part to achieve that relief, and hope evertone will see that goal as we do.