BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1208
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 1208 (Charles Calderon)
As Amended May 18, 2011
Majority vote
JUDICIARY 7-2 APPROPRIATIONS 14-1
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|Ayes:|Feuer, Wagner, Atkins, |Ayes:|Fuentes, Harkey, |
| |Dickinson, Huber, Jones, | |Blumenfield, Bradford, |
| |Wieckowski | |Charles Calderon, Davis, |
| | | |Donnelly, Gatto, Hall, |
| | | |Hill, Lara, Norby, |
| | | |Solorio, Wagner |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Huffman, Monning |Nays:|Mitchell |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Seeks to address governance and funding within
California's judicial branch. Specifically, among other
provisions, this bill :
1)Deletes the existing provision of law that states that the
Judicial Council shall retain the ultimate responsibility to
adopt a budget and allocate funding for the trial courts and
perform specified activities that best assure their ability to
carry out their functions, promote implementation of statewide
policies, and promote the immediate implementation of
efficiencies and cost saving measures in court operations, in
order to guarantee equal access to the courts.
2)Also deletes existing provisions which empower the Judicial
Council to authorize a trial court to carry unexpended funds
over from one fiscal year to the next, and instead provides
that unexpended funds shall be the funds of that trial court,
which may carry those unexpended funds over from one fiscal
year to the next. Prohibits those funds from being
reallocated or redirected without the consent of the
management of the trial court.
3)Requires the Judicial Council, or its designee, to allocate
100% of the funds appropriated for support of trial court
operations according to each court's share of statewide
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operational funding. Provides that all funds, once allocated,
are funds of the trial court, and authorizes courts to
transfer funds between functions, line items or programs as
directed by management of the trial court.
4)Deletes existing provisions relating to the manner in which
the Judicial Council allocates funding for trial court
operations, and instead requires that the amount allocated to
each trial court from the amount appropriated for trial court
operations be equal to the pro rata share of the prior fiscal
year's adjusted base budget, except as provided.
5)Requires the Legislature, based on the information submitted
in the Governor's proposed budget, and prior to the allocation
of funds to each local trial court, to specify, in each annual
Budget Act, the funding amounts to be allocated for programs
of statewide concern from the total funds appropriated for
trial court operations by the Legislature.
6)Prohibits the Judicial Council, or its designee, from
withholding or expending any portion of the total funds
appropriated for trial court operations by the Legislature for
any statewide information technology or administrative
infrastructure program that was not identified in the annual
Budget Act, unless the Judicial Council, or its designee,
first obtains the written approval of 662/3% of a proportional
representation of all local trial courts as determined by the
number of judges in each court.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Consolidates funding for trial court operations centrally at
the state level under the administration of the judicial
branch's Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).
2)Provides that notwithstanding any other law, the Judicial
Council may regulate the budget and fiscal management of the
trial courts. The Judicial Council, in consultation with the
Controller, shall maintain appropriate regulations for
recordkeeping and accounting by the courts.
3)Provides that the Judicial Council shall allocate funds to the
individual trial courts pursuant to an allocation schedule
adopted by the Judicial Council which meets minimum funding
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levels as set forth in statute, and provides that the Judicial
Council shall allocate funds to ensure the courts can carry
out their functions, promote statewide policies, promote court
efficiencies and cost savings in court operations.
4)Provides that the Judicial Council shall adopt rules which
establish a decentralized system of trial court management,
and provides that the Judicial Council shall adopt policies
and procedures about moving funding between functions or line
items or programs.
5)Grants the Judicial Council authority to use trial court funds
to develop statewide information technology systems and to
create regulations for trial courts' recordkeeping and
accounting.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, to the extent the bill's limitations hinder the
efficient allocation of resources within the judicial branch,
costs within the overall system would increase. The impact of
this bill would largely depend on the extent to which the AOC's
requested budgets accurately delineate the resources required
for all statewide programs and the Legislature schedules each of
these programs in the annual Budget Act. (Past practice has
been to schedule certain statewide programs in the Budget Act,
such as court appointed special advocates, but not all programs,
such as information technology projects and activities.) Given
the inherent uncertainty in budgeting for IT projects in
particular, the budgeting restrictions in this bill could be
particularly problematic, as the need for additional resources
subsequent to budget enactment would require concurrence of
two-thirds of the trial courts on a proportionate basis.
COMMENTS : This measure seeks to address governance practices
and budgeting authority within California's judicial branch. It
is an outgrowth of substantial discontent that has arisen in
recent years among an unknown number of superior court judges
who contend that trial courts have not had their
constitutionally-protected administrative and financial
independence appropriately respected by the administrative arm
of the judiciary, the AOC, and its governing authority, the
Judicial Council of California (the "Judicial Council"). By
many accounts, much of this discontent appears to grow out of a
perception by some trial court judges that under prior
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leadership, the Judicial Council was not sufficiently open to,
or inclusive of, dissenting views regarding important issues of
internal judicial branch management.
This measure was introduced on February 18, 2011, approximately
one month after California's new chief justice, Tani
Cantil-Sakauye, was sworn in to take the helm of the state's
judicial branch during a difficult time of severe budget cuts,
furloughed employees, and great uncertainty in the court system.
The bill is supported by some trial courts as well as a group
of state trial court judges known as the Alliance of California
Judges, and it is opposed by the California Commission on Access
to Justice, the Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC),
the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC), the California
Defense Counsel, the California Chamber of Commerce, the
Judicial Council, and some other trial courts, as well as a
number of appellate and trial court judges.
In support of the measure, the author has stated in part that:
The Trial Court Funding Act was enacted to ensure equitable
distribution of funds to trial courts by transferring the
principal funding responsibility to the state of
California. The Legislature never intended to strip the
trial courts of their independence to manage themselves and
to meet their constitutional obligations? The Court Case
Management System (CCMS) illustrates the problem.
According to the State Auditor Report, the AOC has spent
$407 million as of June 2010, averaging $50 million a year
for a software system riddled with problems. To put these
figures into perspective, the Judicial Council closed court
houses 1-day a month to save $90 million instead of
eliminating CCMS funding. Additionally, the audit report
estimated the total cost of finishing the CCMS system at
$1.9 billion, averaging $300 million a year for the next 5
years, which does not include the cost of implementing the
system. Because trial courts lack control over their own
finances, they have been unable to either prevent court
closures or the use of their funds for CCMS?
In addition, the author also has stated in support that
"Judicial Council has attempted a number of projects since the
enactment of the Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Funding Act. It
has created a number of court houses, it has undertaken court
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maintenance, it has developed a statewide case file computer
system, and it has dealt with state budget cuts. It has failed
to adequately deal with, develop, and execute each one of these
projects." Proponents of the bill state, for example, that
"Court houses were closed one day a month to deal with budget
cuts. It did this to save $90 million. At the same time,
Judicial Council transferred $72 million from the Trial Court
Trust Fund (used primarily to pay for court operations) to
develop CCMS. It seems that access to justice would be better
served by keeping court houses open instead of funding the
development of CCMS."
In further support of the measure, the bill's trial court
proponents point to what they contend are a number of examples
of what they perceive to be excessive interference by the AOC
into the management and administration of their trial courts.
Proponents argue in essence that the Judicial Council has
exercised too much power over how trial courts spend what they
perceive to be their own money. Among other issues, proponents
contend that trial courts should be able to make such
fundamental court decisions as whether and when to close court
facilities, or choose instead to take alternative emergency
measures of their own design. They especially point their
collective frustration at longtime leaders within the AOC, whom
they forcefully assert have been un-collaborative and
uncompromising.
In support of the measure, leaders of the Alliance of California
Judges state they abhor what they call the "erosion" of the
power of trial courts in California since the passage of the
Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Funding Act in 1997. They suggest
that since enactment of the Funding Act and subsequent laws,
there has been a power imbalance within the judiciary, placing
what they conceive as too much power in the hands of a flawed
AOC.
Opponents of the measure vigorously contend that the bill is an
unwarranted and unwise intrusion into the internal governance of
the judicial branch of government. Many in the judiciary,
opponents concede, are similarly troubled by the serious
problems associated with the AOC's implementation of the
judiciary's "CCMS" computer system. But, they contend, general
branch governance concerns should be solved within the
judiciary, under the leadership of the new chief justice, whom,
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they note, has already publicly stated she is open to making
whatever governance changes may make sense after she has
reasonable time to review these issues in detail. The new chief
justice should at a minimum, they contend, be given reasonable
time to try to address such concerns within her own branch
before the Legislature seeks to step in.
Opponents also state that the funding and other reforms since
1997 have enabled the Legislature to partner with the judiciary
to enact, with the strong leadership of the former chief
justice, new statewide justice initiatives including self-help
centers in all trial courts; expanded representation in
dependency cases; equal access funds for legal services agencies
for critical civil legal needs of low income persons;
interpreters in domestic violence cases; and innovations such as
expedited jury trials.
The Judicial Council, in strong opposition to the bill, states
that enactment of this measure would also be a significant
retreat from the restructuring of the judicial branch that has
occurred in the last fifteen years. The Judicial Council writes
that:
The goal of a statewide administration of justice was to
bring uniformity in administrative rules and processes,
avoid waste, create transparency in financial
accountability, establish uniform performance and education
and training standards, and ensure equal access to justice
for all Californians, while at the same time recognizing
the authority and responsibility of superior courts to
manage their day-to-day operations and provide for a
decentralized system of trial court management. AB 1208
moves in the opposite direction. In fact, AB 1208 deletes
provisions of the Government Code which spell out the
responsibility of the Judicial Council to adopt a budget
and allocate funding in a manner that best assures the
courts' ability to carry out their functions, promote
implementation of statewide policies, and promote the
immediate implementation of efficiencies and cost saving
measures in court operations, in order to guarantee equal
access to the courts? Finally, by striking references to
the goals that are to inform council decisions on
allocating funding, the bill appears to seek to dismantle
the goals of a statewide judicial branch, instead making
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the paramount consideration each court's individual needs
and interests, without regard to uniformity and consistency
for the users of the court system, and seeking to ensure
equal access to justice statewide. This is exacerbated by
the amendments which eliminate the ability of the Judicial
Council to direct increased allocations to, or mitigate the
impact of budget reductions to under-resourced courts or
courts with fiscal emergencies (accomplished by the bill
requiring that the amount allocated to each trial court be
equal to the pro rata share of the adjusted base budget of
the prior fiscal year).
CCMS : As noted above, a major fuel for concern among some trial
courts and many judicial officers across the state regarding
prior governance practices by the AOC and Judicial Council
unquestionably has involved serious problems surrounding the
Judicial Branch's implementation of the Court Case Management
System (CCMS). According to AOC records, when the state assumed
responsibility for funding the trial courts in 1998, more than
130 variations of 70 independently operated systems were used in
California's trial courts, having been developed by counties,
courts, and private commercial vendors. Thus the goal of the
CCMS system was to replace the many incompatible existing
systems trial courts currently have in use with a single
statewide computer system.
In the recent painful climate of employee furloughs and severe
budget cutbacks across trial courts in California, proponents of
the bill repeatedly have pointed to what they call the
"boondoggle" of $1.9 to $3 billion now anticipated to be spent
developing CCMS. On February 8, 2011, the California State
Auditor released an unusually scathing audit report of CCMS.
Amongst the key findings in the Auditor's report: 1) The AOC
inadequately planned the project since 2003, including over the
course of seven years, the AOC entered into 102 contract
amendments and increased the cost of the contract from $33
million to $310 million; 2) The AOC has consistently failed to
develop accurate cost estimates or timelines on the project, and
annual reports to the Legislature did not provide complete cost
information. The estimated date for complete deployment has
been pushed back by seven years; 3) The majority of the courts
believe their current case management systems will serve them
for the foreseeable future and users of interim systems
expressed reservations about using CCMS; and, 4) The AOC's
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attempt at independent oversight came late in the life of the
project, and the AOC did not adequately address significant
concerns raised by the consultant providing the oversight and
thus, the project may have future quality issues.
The Auditor made extensive and broad recommendations to the AOC,
including that it take steps to fully understand and address the
trial courts' concerns as implementation moves forward and
retain an independent consultant to review CCMS before
deployment to determine if there are quality issues and
problems. The AOC belatedly agreed to implement all of the
Auditor's recommendations, though the bill's proponents
repeatedly criticize what they contend was an unreasonable
length of time for top AOC management to accept responsibility
for missteps and to take needed remedial actions.
Proponents of this measure agree that as currently drafted, the
bill would effectively give a very small combination of trial
courts in California a "veto" over the further development of a
statewide court computer system, or any interconnected financial
accounting system generally, if the goal of the system is a
statewide approach ultimately connecting all 58 state trial
courts. Opponents point to the analysis of the Appropriations
Committee, which states in this regard that "Given the inherent
uncertainty in budgeting for IT projects in particular, the
budgeting restrictions in this bill could be particularly
problematic, as the need for additional resources subsequent to
budget enactment would require concurrence of two-thirds of the
trial courts on a proportionate basis."
Analysis Prepared by : Drew Liebert / JUD. / (916) 319-2334
FN: 0000996