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| February 28, 2014 | |
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AND THIS IS WHY WE NEED COURT REPORTERS If a judge speaks to the Judicial Council but nobody documents it, did that judge make a sound? At the Judicial Council meeting last Thursday, Alliance President Steve White was allotted a few minutes to speak in favor of Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer’s proposed audit of the Council and the AOC. But you’d have to look long and hard in the official record to find any trace of what he said. The Judicial Council press release—available here—doesn’t even mention that anybody—let alone the president of an organization with a membership of 500 judges—ever spoke on behalf of the audit. And for some reason, the Council’s live captioning service stopped working right at the start of the public comment period. You can see for yourself here. The audio of the public comment period does exist on the Judicial Council website, but with no listing of who spoke, or on what topic. Luckily, however, a reporter from the Courthouse News Service was present, and we attach her article regarding the meeting at the end of this email. Accidents do happen. It might have been just a coincidence that the captioning system crashed just as one of the most prominent advocates for an audit was about to speak. If the Council needs a reliable stenographic reporter, we’d be happy to recommend any one of the dozens of capable and dedicated court reporters who were laid off during the budget crisis. But what happened to trial court employees from Kings and Tulare Counties was no accident. They took a day off work and traveled to Sacramento to speak, only to be denied the opportunity to address the Council. Apparently, they ran afoul of Rule 10(b), the rule that requires four days written notice and a summary of the proposed statement The rule, however, seems to be enforced only when the Chief wants it enforced. She can waive it. In fact, the public agenda for the meeting contained this line: “The Chief Justice has waived certain requirements under Rule 10.6(d) for requests to speak at this meeting.” (See here.) This “waiver” was evidently granted only to those with laudatory things to say about the Council. When the Chief Justice invited anybody present to share stories about a departing Council member, several people did so, presumably without giving four days notice. We believe that when our fellow court workers travel to a public meeting of a decision-making body and seek to be heard during a pre-scheduled period set aside specifically for public comment, fairness and due process demand that they be heard. The silencing of critics smacks of the heavy-handed tactics of the last Chief Justice, and stands in sharp contrast to the current Chief’s promises of openness and transparency. It fuels the widely held perception that Judicial Council meetings are little more than carefully choreographed performances at which seldom is heard a dissenting word. Actions have consequences. If the members of the Council won’t listen to the people who work on the front lines of the judiciary, they should not be surprised if the Legislature likewise turns a deaf ear come budget time.
Directors, _____________________________________
By Maria Dinzeo
On a 16-2 vote, the council approved a payment for Kings County to come out of a $35 million pot set aside for emergencies. The crisis in the Kings County court's finances is the inability to complete payments to Tyler Technologies for a new case management system. The court is in its second year of a five-year, $2.11 million Tyler contract. "We cannot fund our CMS program on the backs of our employees," Presiding Judge Thomas DeSantos said. "We have already taken drastic measures, we will continue to take drastic measures, but I cannot tell my people to take more furloughs or lay off more people." The court has already closed its courthouse in Lemoore and cut hours at the Corcoran courthouse. It also cut two management positions and required 22 employee furlough days for roughly $900,000 in savings for fiscal year 2013-2014, but is still unable to fund the technology project without going into the red. In addition to sending emergency funds to the Kings County court, the council decided to spend the remaining money in the emergency pot by distributing the rest of the $35 million to local courts before April 15, when the courts must report to the Legislature and the governor's Department of Finance. Such spending has fueled a tech gold rush in the California court system. Local courts are emptying their local reserve funds by funding big-ticket items, such as multi-million-dollar software contracts. Anything left in the reserve funds at the end of June returns to the state. In connection with overall spending by the courts, Judge Steve White of Sacramento urged the council Thursday to support an audit of spending by the council and the Administrative Office of the Courts. The audit was requested by Assembly member Reginald Jones-Sawyer earlier this month, specifically referencing the half-billion dollars spent on software that was used by only a few courts and is now rapidly being ditched in favor of more recent technology. White pointed out that the council has not voted on the audit but appears opposed. "I note with some interest that this body without a vote seems to be opposed to it," said the judge. "In order for this body to have credibility, it needs to have an audit, just to find out how monies are spent in the AOC and the Judicial Council," said White. He said one critical purpose of an audit would be to find out "the priority of allocation of those monies." "Neither the Legislature nor the Governor, nor the courts knows what that is," White told the council. Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat from Los Angeles, requested the audit last week with a letter to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, noting that the council was hiking its own budget while starving the trial courts that directly serve the people of California. "The Judicial Council and the AOC are responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars annually," said the assembly member's letter. "As the Department of Finance and the Legislative Analyst's Office do not currently receive a detailed annual budget for the Judicial Council or AOC, there exists no mechanism to ensure accountability of public funds with which it is entrusted." "Despite several budget cuts, the Judicial Council's budget grew while funding for trial court operations declined," he said. "For example, the Judicial Council's budget for 2013-2014 is stated at $141.5 million. This is $20.9 million more than was spent in 2011-2012." The audit will be conducted by the Bureau of State Audits, which, in an earlier 2011 audit, found the court administrative office had spent hundreds of millions in public funds on the Court Case Management system, a statewide software project that was terminated in 2012. "The audit uncovered mismanagement, waste, and a lack of meaningful oversight that led to the program's eventual termination," said the letter from Jones-Sawyer. "As a result, taxpayers saved hundreds of millions of dollars, and members of the public who must rely on courts were spared even deeper cuts to services." Jones-Sawyer chairs the Assembly budget sub-committee that funds the courts. The administrative office's director, Steven Jahr, rejected the letter's points. "The Judicial Council and AOC's operation budget and expenditures represent 3.6 percent of the overall branch budget and have gone down," Jahr told the council. In his statement to the council, White rejected that claim, saying there is no way of knowing where the money goes without an independent review. "The reporting is opaque and anything but transparent," said White. "There's a lot of hide-the-ball. The courts need to regain confidence in the AOC and the Judicial Council and it doesn't happen without that audit." |
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Alliance of California Judges |