BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 229
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Date of Hearing: July 8, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
SB 229
(Roth) - As Amended June 2, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill appropriates $10 million from the General Fund to
establish six new superior court judgeships and associated
support staff.
SB 229
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FISCAL EFFECT:
$10 million General Fund appropriation.
Since this bill would not take effect until January 1, 2016,
only six months of funding ($5 million) would be needed in
2015-16 for these positions. Moreover, the Judicial Council
indicates that this level of funding would be sufficient to fund
12 judgeships, because the staff complement for each new
judgeship can be reduced from the workload standard of 8.9 to
3.0 positions. This change can be accommodated because the
courts that are first in line to receive new judgeships are also
those considered historically underfunded, and as a result,
these courts are already benefitting from the reallocation of
funds under the courts' Workload Based Allocation & Funding
Methodology (WAFM). The reallocation of funds via WAFM for
2015-16, scheduled to be 30% of the base allocation that trial
courts receive from the Trial Court Trust Fund, is a sufficient
increase for these traditionally underfunded courts that they
would be able to afford a significant portion of the staffing
costs associated with each new judgeship.
The Judicial Council indicates that the following county courts
would receive new judgeship under the bill: San Bernardino (4),
Riverside (3), and one each in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, San
Joaquin, and Stanislaus Counties.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. This bill, sponsored by the Judicial Council, seeks
to make progress in adding judicial resources to an
increasingly overburdened court system. The author indicates
that, according to the Judicial Council's 2014 Judicial Needs
SB 229
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Assessment estimates that 35 courts need a total of 270 new
judgeships, or 14% more than the 1,963 currently authorized
and funded judicial positions.
2)Recent Budget Actions. The 2015 Budget Act (AB 93, Weber), as
enacted by the Legislature on June 15, included $7.8 million
for up to 12 new judgeships. However, SB 97 (Senate Budget and
Fiscal Review), which provided subsequent amendments to AB 93,
deleted this funding. Both AB 93 and SB 97 were signed by the
Governor on June 24th.
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081