Winners, Losers Likely As State Revises Court Funding

For the first time in nearly 20 years, the group that administers California’s courts is changing how cash is divided among 58 state trial courts, and there are winners and losers among individual counties. The Courthouse News is among those reporting on the changes, explaining in a detailed story that “.. the old funding model was frozen along historic lines, based on ratios established in 1994 that carried forward into 1997 legislation that centralized court funding and rule-making and started a big expansion of the central administrative office. After Friday’s vote, trial court funding will slowly begin taking into account the volume of cases handled by individual trial courts along with other factors.”
 
Among those likely to be losing significant funding: Orange County. Among those likely to be gaining funds, given the case-filing pattern of late, Los Angeles County. But many details must be considered and the Judicial Council more or less admits this is only being done because state lawmakers insisted on changes before even considering increased court funding.
 
Check out the excellent story here.