Budget Advisory Group Holding Thursday Call

The public can listen into the next meeting of California’s Trial Budget Advisory Committee meeting via a conference call, officials announced. The meeting will discuss “ongoing budget issues plaguing the state’s courts,” according to published accounts, and will focus on court interpreter funding and proposed revisions to some tech project allocations. 
 
The meeting is open to the public via conference call. The meeting will also be audiocast live. More information is available here: Trial Court Budget Advisory Committee – judicial_council.

Courts Contracts Info Denied To Reform Judge

It’s an ongoing issue, but you might think that getting copies of all the current vendor contracts for California courts would be (A) a cure for insomnia and (B) fairly easy. Think again. Because “A” may be true but “B” is proving difficult for a judge who has been critical of the judicial administration, reports the Voice of San Diego website, a non-profit investigative news outlet.
 
The VofSD reports that “… Kevin McCormick, a trial judge in Sacramento who also heads a court reform-advocacy group called the Alliance of California Judges, asked state court administrators earlier this year for copies of all their current contracts with vendors. He was surprised to hear that they did not have that information available… the courts had literally interpreted [open records act] Rule 10.500 to mean that they did not have to “create” a public record of their contracts — even at the request of a judge.”
 
Judge McCormick went on to question how such a large system runs without a list of vendor contracts. You can read more about the issue here.