BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 2882 Page 1 Date of Hearing: April 20, 2016 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Lorena Gonzalez, Chair AB 2882 (Committee on Judiciary) - As Amended March 29, 2016 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Judiciary |Vote:|10 - 0 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No SUMMARY: This bill makes a number of non-controversial changes to family law in California, including: 1) allowing conversions of subordinate judicial officer positions to judges; 2) allowing formerly incarcerated child support obligors to petition a court to suspend arrears that had previously accrued during a now-sunsetted pilot program; and 3) updating and making technical corrections to marriage establishment, adoption, and Department of Child Support Services enforcement provisions. FISCAL EFFECT: AB 2882 Page 2 1)Annual costs of up to $300,000 for conversion of up to 10 SJOs to judgeships. For each conversion of an SJO position to a judgeship, the additional annual cost, based on salary differences between the two positions, is approximately $27,000. The Judicial Council indicates that these additional costs will be funded through a reallocation of monies in the Trial Court Trust Fund. 2)Other costs are minor and absorbable. COMMENTS: 1)Purpose. This bill is the Judiciary Committee's annual omnibus family law bill. It seeks to improve the handling of family and juvenile law cases in our courts by making several non-controversial changes to family law. 2)Subordinate Judicial Officer Conversions. According to the Judicial Council, SJO positions were historically created and funded at the county level to address courts' needs for judicial-like resources when new judgeships were pending or not yet authorized by the Legislature. Unlike judges, SJOs are not directly accountable to the public, but due to the shortages of judges, are performing some of the most complex and sensitive judicial duties. Conversion of these positions to judgeships when they become vacant makes them both more accountable to the public and, the author contends, helps provide better trust and confidence in the courts. AB 159 (Jones), Statutes of 2007, in addition to authorizing 50 additional trial court judgeships, authorized the AB 2882 Page 3 conversion of 162 SJOs to judgeships, with a cap of 16 conversions per year and subject to Legislative authorization through the budget, which has occurred each year. On top of these 162 positions, AB 2763 (Feuer), Statutes of 2010, authorized conversion of an additional 10 SJO positions per year to judgeships, but only to fill SJO vacancies in a family law or juvenile law assignments in order to address shortages of judges in these areas. (The Judicial Council and other parties have identified family and juvenile law matters among those that are of such a nature as to require judges, rather than SJOs, to preside over them whenever possible.) This bill fulfills the requirement in AB 2763 that the conversion of 10 SJOs be ratified by statutory enactment other than the Budget Act. Since AB 2763 (Feuer) was signed in 2010, the Legislature has ratified the conversion of SJOs to judgeships four times: AB 1519 (Judiciary), Chapter 416, Statutes of 2015; AB 2745 (Judiciary), Chapter 311, Statutes of 2014; AB 1403 (Judiciary), Chapter 510, Statutes of 2013; SB 405 (Corbett), Chapter 705, Statutes of 2011. This bill seeks to provide the Judicial Council with that same ratification for 2016-17. Judicial Council supports this portion of the bill. Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081 AB 2882 Page 4