Shifting Costs, Releasing Prisoners Helps Balance a Budget

May 7, 2013 By
 
Here are a couple of ways the state of California is reaching that “balanced budget” we hear so much about: cutting courts and shifting prison populations to local jails. The HealthyCal.org website has a well-sourced story out of San Mateo that illustrates how the problems go hand in hand, although typically we’re seeing the civil courts take more cuts than the criminal courts – likely because plenty of constitutional guarantees dominate criminal cases.
 
San Mateo is a microcosm of what is happening throughout the state, San Mateo Presiding Judge Robert Foiles told the website. They also noted a scary fact from that recent survey of trial courts for the state Judicial Council, which administers the courts: 11 of the 48 counties that responded reported they weren’t able to process domestic violence temporary restraining orders on the same day they’re filed.
 
Here’s the background for San Mateo: Over the past five years, trial courts throughout the state have had their budgets slashed by about $1 billion because of the state’s fiscal crisis. Before the cuts San Mateo County had $12 million in reserve. They are now down to $1.2 million. The governor’s proposed budget for this year would mean another $4.5 million budget shortfall. The court has cut more than 30 percent of its workforce. If the Governor’s proposed budget passes, they will have to shutter the central courthouse and reduce the South San Francisco courthouse to two judges – who will only hear the most serious cases.
 
We perhaps treat civil and criminal courts as different worlds, and this report shows the interaction. Read it here.  
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , ,

Profile of Court Fees Increases Amid Budget Crisis

May 6, 2013 By
 
Just in time for the increasing discussion of special court fees, like the ones for accessing public documents that is effectively shelved for the time being, a Sacramento Bee story outlines that any “temporary” fees tend to become permanent, and cites a court fee as the oldest example.
 
Jim Sanders, who wrote the Bee report, says that 13 of of 21 “temporary” fees received extensions, cumulatively raising more than $70 million annually for programs ranging from a missing persons database to an effort to fight auto insurance fraud.” He then notes that “… perhaps the oddest Capitol trail left by a single fee involved five bills over the past decade to raise millions for California courts. What is now a $40 court fee tacked onto all criminal convictions, including traffic violations, began as a $20 charge in 2003. It later was raised to $30, then to $40, then expiration dates were eliminated, leaving the charge permanent.”

Allowed uses also shift. That court fee, for example, was initially earmarked for security but can now be used for administration. It will be an important issue in the upcoming crunch-time debates over what funding the legislature actually finds to address the growing courts crisis.

 
Read the full story here.
 
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , ,

Bay Area Federal Courthouses Closing On Some Fridays

May 2, 2013 By
 
Those justice system budget hits just keep on coming, and in addition to state cuts we’re seeing federal impacts from Washington’s budget “sequester.” The San Jose Mercury News is reporting that “… for the first time in decades, the Bay Area’s federal courthouses in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose will shut their doors for a day each month to save money.” The report says that San Francisco and San Jose federal courts will close the first Friday of each month until September, while the Oakland branch will do the same on the first Monday of the month… the Northern California federal court system also will lock its Eureka satellite branch on the same Fridays.
 
The paper noted that “Bay Area courts are not alone in their budget misery. Colorado’s federal courts are taking the same step. The Los Angeles federal courts are closing clerks’ offices for seven Fridays through August, while the Utah courts cut the number of criminal matters heard each day.”
 
Read the story here. 
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , ,

Doing The Math, Losers Take Note Of New Court Funding Scheme

May 1, 2013 By
An Associated Press story getting wide statewide play breaks down the newly proposed courts funding as “… a new formula for distributing more than $1 billion in state funding for California’s 58 trial courts that would take money from some court systems and give it to rural and fast-growing counties such as Riverside and San Bernardino.”
 
While that may be over simplification, it does illustrate that the state is about to pick winners and losers in courts funding, which could have some jurisdictions focusing on the new allotments instead of the big-picture courts funding. For example, San Bernardino has been the poster county for rationing justice, and it is among the “winners” in the new formula. Losers? Well, the AP says that “… Santa Clara County would be the biggest loser in the San Francisco Bay Area, absorbing more than $10 million in cuts in the next five years, the San Jose Mercury News reported.”
 
You can read the AP report, via The Fresno Bee, here.
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , ,

Worried About Costs, Imperial County Wants In On Court Cuts Discussions

April 25, 2013 By

The lack of public comment into the ongoing Los Angeles County Superior Court reorganization has been one ongoing complaint about the changes, and now the Imperial County Board of Supervisors is “demanding” to be in on discussions, according to the Inland Empire Press. Along with other worries, the supervisors argue that some cuts might save the courts money but end up costing the county additional money for transportation and other services.

Ray Castillo, chairman of the Imperial County supervisors was quoted in the report, pointing out that, “By slashing some cuts to the courts to the tune $500,000, we are looking at double that in cost (of) transporting inmates. So you save over here but … you gave the cost in this case to the county.”  The board directed staff to begin contacting appropriate agencies to make sure local officials are included in discussions.
 
Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , ,

Court funding: Politics large and small

April 22, 2013 By

Article from CCM’s Special Report – CIVIL COURTS: RATIONING JUSTICE IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY

A few weeks after a big downtown rally against Los Angeles Superior Court reorganization, a middle-aged man who had attended the protest walked into a Starbucks next to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse and ordered an elaborate latte concoction.

“It would be different,” he mused as they prepared the drink, “if the judges were elected.” 

He must have been thinking of federal court, because the Superior Court judges held up as out-of-touch 1 percenters at the protest ARE elected, albeit in the most unheralded races anyone might imagine. That near-total lack of political interest is a key reason that this “special report” is a long-form accounting of what amounts to simple political Darwinism.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Looking for ‘literature,’ finding civic revolt

April 18, 2013 By

By Sara Warner, from CCM Special Report

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. After some time Back East, I was moving back to California where I’ve lived nearly all of the past 17 years. When talk turned to a courts website last year, our pretensions were mostly literary: we wanted www.californiacourtsmonitor.com to celebrate “the writing” about justice, like that you get from Associated Press Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch or maybe even less known voices like James Preston Allen, the publisher of San Pedro’s “Random LengthNews.” (Not, by the way, that Mr. Allen is likely to care all that much.)

It seemed logical enough. It was a good project that meshed nicely with my day job as development director for a non-profit legal foundation. Also, I grew up with the Law (capital “L” in our house). My grandfather was a famous lawyer and my grand uncle was a Federal Court judge. Who knew we would find a civil courts system in what amounts to full-on revolt?

 

 

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[Read more…]

Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , , ,

CCM issues first ‘special print report’

April 17, 2013 By
Who says new media can’t be old school? Today, the California Courts Monitor is releasing a special report, on old-fashioned newsprint no less, in the Los Angeles area. Distributed free all over the city, the idea is to increase awareness of the ongoing civil courts crisis while also explaining a new focus online.
 
When we launched the CCM, we hoped to highlight great writing on the judicial process and celebrate the extended legal community. But what we’ve found is a true crisis in the civil court system, so we have decided to become the only site — that we know of, anyway — to consolidate coverage of those issues.
 
We’ll be posting parts of the special report here in the coming days and if you live in the Los Angeles area keep an eye out for the depression-era photo illustration. You’ll know it when you see it. — The Editors.
 
(Note: you can download a pdf of the complete Special Report here.)
Filed Under: Community, Courts Budget Tagged With: , , , ,

Report: Services Slashed, Trials Delayed As Court Cutbacks Take Hold

April 11, 2013 By
You might think that domestic violence restraining orders would be same-day service by California courts. But you wold be wrong in at least 11 counties, according to the Trial Court Presiding Judges Committee. Plus, some 38 counties have reduced self-help services for litigants without lawyers, according to a report in The Los Angeles Times.
 
A story by Maura Dolan (maura.dolan@latimes.com) adds to the details stacking up as the state courts cutbacks take hold. She writes that “California courts, reeling from years of state budget cuts, are delaying hearings and trials, allowing records to sit unprocessed for months and slashing services at public windows, a judge’s committee has reported.”

The story offers some highlights: In San Francisco, paying a traffic ticket can now take up to four hours, and filing a lawsuit can consume nearly three hours, the report said. In Sacramento, window services have been slashed by more than 75%, prompting fights in lines, according to the committee. Getting a trial in a traffic matter in San Diego requires at least a five-month wait, the survey found, and court closures have forced some San Bernardino residents to drive up to 175 miles one way to attend to a legal matter. Record-filing has slowed across many counties and created backlogs, the report said.

Read the latest here.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

More Pushback On Judicial Spending, Lawmaker Sends Strong Warning

April 8, 2013 By
When the chairperson of a legislative committee appears at a subcommittee hearing, they want to get people’s attention, according to Recorder blogger Cheryl Miller, and that is what happened recently when Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Van Nuys, visited a courts budget meeting.
 
Miller, writing in the Recorder’s LegalPad blog, notes that Blumenfield told the group that “… while the state grappled with a budget crisis, court administrators sometimes have acted fiscally irresponsible even though fiscal responsibility was the mantra of the day… We’ve seen a failed computer system with years of cost overruns and nearly $500 million wasted. In the process, the courts took millions from trial courts — sacrificing access to justice — to keep the failed computer project running. This year, the court system will likely enter an agreement and spend $100 million more than we should to build a new courthouse in Long Beach.”
 
That is another indication of dueling narratives as the state rations access to justice. Miller writes that, “… reading between the lines, the Assembly’s top budget official seemed to be saying that if the Legislature does restore any judicial funding, it’s going to come with some serious strings attached.” It also indicates that not everyone is buying the idea that the courts are with “the people” on spending issues.
 

Read the Miller blog here.

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