BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
Senator Noreen Evans, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
AB 2076 (Ma)
As Amended June 25, 2012
Hearing Date: July 3, 2012
Fiscal: Yes
Urgency: No
RD
SUBJECT
Court Reporters: Fees
DESCRIPTION
Existing law provides that for each civil trial court proceeding
lasting more than one hour, a fee equal to one-half day of
services shall be charged to the parties, on a pro rata basis,
and that the fees collected shall be used only to pay the cost
for services of an official court reporter in civil proceedings,
as specified. This bill would add that a $30 fee be charged for
each proceeding lasting less than an hour for the reasonable
cost of the services of an official court reporter, as
specified. The bill would also require that these fees be
retained by the court in which the fee was collected and would
codify the legislative intent to continue an incentive to courts
to use the services of an official court reporter in civil
proceedings.
Existing law also requires that $30 from specified civil filing
fees that are distributed to the Trial Court Trust Fund (TCTF)
be used for services of an official court reporter in civil
proceedings. This bill would instead mandate that the $30 be
retained by the court that collected it, while still requiring
that it be used for the services of an official court reporter
in civil proceedings. This bill would also strike existing
intent language that allows the Judicial Council to allocate
these funds to replace reductions in general fund appropriations
to the TCTF, and, instead, specify that in trial courts where
official court reporting services in civil proceedings are not
provided, the $30 portion retained from these uniform filing
fees for court reporters in civil proceedings shall instead
(more)
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revert to the TCTF for redistribution to trial courts that do
provide these services on a pro rata basis and require that they
be used to provide those services.
BACKGROUND
California law requires that an official reporter or official
reporter pro tempore of the superior court take down in
shorthand all testimony, objections made, rulings of the court,
exceptions taken, arraignments, pleas, sentences, arguments of
the attorneys to the jury, and statements and remarks made and
oral instructions given by the judge or other judicial officer,
in specified cases. These cases include, among others, civil
cases that are ordered by the court or requested by a party.
(Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 269.)
Separately, California law, with the enactment of AB 233
(Escutia and Pringle, Ch. 850, Stats. 1997), consolidated all
court funding at the state level, giving the Legislature
authority to make appropriations and the Judicial Council
responsibility to allocate funds to state courts. In doing so,
it required that all court reporters fees collected by the trial
courts be deposited into the Trial Court Trust Fund (TCTF),
where nearly all court-collected fees are now deposited. The
court reporter fees are then returned to the trial courts as
part of their annual allocation and are distributed on a pro
rata basis, as opposed to on the basis of the dollars collected.
More specifically, the Government Code requires that certain
fees be charged and be used to pay for the cost for services of
an official court reporter in civil proceedings. Among these,
existing law requires that $30 from specified civil filing fees
that are distributed to the TCTF be used to provide for services
of an official court reporter. However, California law has also
specified through codified legislative intent that that while it
intends for this $30 to continue as an incentive for courts to
use official court reporters in civil proceedings, nothing
affects the Judicial Council's authority to allocate these funds
to replace reductions in general fund appropriations to the
Trial Court Trust Fund. (See Gov. Code Sec. 68086.1(c).)
The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is required to
annually report to the Legislature, as require under existing
law about court reporter fees collected under these sections of
law and the expenditures for court reporters in superior court
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civil proceedings for the same periods. Accordingly, in
February 2012, the AOC reported that $34,040,630 was remitted to
the TCTF as follows: (1) $12,485,932 came from fees paid by
parties to civil proceedings pursuant to Government Code Section
68086 for the services of an official court reporter in
proceedings lasting more than one hour on the first day and each
succeeding judicial day; and (2) $21,554,698 is attributable to
the $30 fee required to be deposited in the TCTF from first
paper filings and responses for civil proceedings in the
superior court where the amount demanded is over $10,000.
During that same fiscal year 2010-2011, the estimated amount
spent for the services of court reporters in superior court
civil proceedings was $82,770,473. (See AOC, Report to the
Judicial Council, Judicial Branch Report to the Legislature:
Court Reporter Fees Collected and Expenditures for Court
Reporter Services in Superior Court Civil Proceedings for Fiscal
Year 2010-2011 (Feb. 22, 2012)
< http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20120228-itemF.pdf > �as
of June 24, 2012].)
This bill, co-sponsored by the California Court Reporters
Association and California Official Reporters Association, seeks
to (1) increase the fees used to pay for the costs of court
reporters and (2) allow local courts to retain those fees and
require that those fees only be used for the provision of court
reporters in civil proceedings, unless the court does not
provide for court reporters in civil proceedings, in which case
the bill provides for those fees collected to revert to the TCTF
and be distributed by the Judicial Council only for the
provision of court reporter services in civil proceedings. In
doing so, the bill would also remove the Judicial Council's
ability to allocate such funds to replace reductions in general
fund appropriations to the TCTF.
CHANGES TO EXISTING LAW
1. Existing law , in relevant part, requires that an official
reporter or official reporter pro tempore of the superior
court take down in shorthand all testimony, objections made,
rulings of the court, exceptions taken, arraignments, pleas,
sentences, arguments of the attorneys to the jury, and
statements and remarks made and oral instructions given by the
judge or other judicial officer, in specified cases,
including, among other things, in a civil case, on the order
of the court or at the request of a party. (Code Civ. Proc.
Sec. 269.)
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Existing law establishes the Trial Court Trust Fund, as
specified. (Gov. Code Sec. 68085.)
Existing law requires that, among other fees, the fees
collected by the trial courts for official court reporters be
deposited in a bank account established by the Administrative
Office of the Courts (AOC). Existing law requires the AOC to
distribute those deposits as provided, with the remainder
going to the Trial Court Trust Fund. (Gov. Code Sec. 68085.1.)
Existing law , among other things, provides that for each civil
trial court proceeding lasting more than one hour, a fee equal
to one-half day of services shall be charged to the parties,
on a pro rata basis, and that the fees collected shall be used
only to pay the cost for services of an official court
reporter in civil proceedings pursuant to Section 269 of the
Code of Civil Procedure. (Gov. Code Sec. 68086.)
This bill would add that for each proceeding lasting less than
an hour, a fee of $30 shall be charged for the reasonable cost
of the services of an official court reporter pursuant to
Section 269 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
This bill would specify that any fees collected for
proceedings lasting for more than one hour, as specified
above, shall be retained by the court that collects the fee to
use for the services of an official court reporter in civil
proceedings.
This bill would codify the intent of the Legislature to
continue an incentive to courts to use the services of an
official court reporter in civil proceedings.
This bill makes other technical and non-substantive changes.
2. Existing law requires that $30 of each of several specified
civil filing fees distributed to the Trial Court Trust Fund be
used for services of an official court reporter in civil
proceedings. Existing law codifies the legislative intent for
this $30 to continue as an incentive for courts to use
official court reporters in civil proceedings, but that
nothing affects the Judicial Council's authority to allocate
these funds to replace reductions in general fund
appropriations to the Trial Court Trust Fund. Existing law
also requires that the portion of the distribution to the Fund
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to be used for services of an official court reporter in civil
proceedings, as specified, only be used in trial courts that
use the services of an official court reporter in civil
proceedings. (Gov. Code Sec. 68086.1.)
This bill would instead provide that this $30 shall be
retained by the court in which the fee was collected and be
used to provide services of an official court reporter in
civil proceedings.
This bill would strike the existing legislative intent
language codified above and instead provide that in trial
courts where official court reporting services are not
provided in civil proceedings, these fees that are to
otherwise be retained by the court as proposed by this bill
are to revert to the Trial Court Trust Fund for redistribution
to trial courts providing official court reporting services in
civil proceedings, on a pro rata basis, and shall be used to
provide the services of an official court reporter in civil
proceedings.
3. Existing law provides that, notwithstanding any other
provision of law, whenever a daily transcript is ordered in a
civil case requiring the services of more than one court
reporter, the party requesting the daily transcript must pay
an additional specified rate and that such fee shall be
distributed to the court to offset the cost of the additional
reporter. (Gov. Code Sec. 69953.5.)
This bill would instead provide that such fee be retained by
the court in which it was collected to offset the cost of the
additional reporter.
COMMENT
1. Stated need for the bill
According to the author:
AB 2076 will assist our local courts to continue to offer
important judicial services by incentivizing the efficient and
effective collection of mandated civil �court] reporter fees.
Due to State budget cuts, California's courts have faced
significant funding issues in recent years. Since 2008,
California's courts have seen reductions totaling more than
$652 million, resulting in cuts that have critically affected
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how our courts are ale to provide judicial services.
Additionally, should the Governor's Initiative fail in
November, another $125 million in trigger cuts could occur,
resulting in additional challenges in the state's ability to
administer and deliver justice. . . .
Millions of attorneys and litigants depend on court reporting
to provide a proper legal transcript for courtroom proceedings
�such as] trials, hearings, and depositions to ensure that
necessary documentation and accurate records are made
available. The cuts to court funding have been so detrimental
that some courts have stopped providing court reporters
altogether. . . . There has been a growing concern over the
inconsistent collection of court reporter fees across
counties, and whether the fees have been adequately
re-appropriated to local trial courts. . . .
Under the current system, the money collected locally for
court reporter services goes to the AOC �Administrative Office
of the Courts] and then is dispersed back out to the trial
courts. Local courts often don't see the fees that they
collected returned to them in adequate amounts so they have
little incentive to increase collection rates. �Also] �u]nder
current law, litigants don't have to pay for the services of
an official court reporter if their proceeding lasts under an
hour. AB 2076 is designed to allow the local trial courts to
retain the dollars generated and collected locally for civil
court reporter services. The elimination of the middle man
and local retention will provide better accountability for
these funds, incentivize collection, and hopefully provide
more money for these essential services. AB 2076 also closes
a loophole in the collection of these fees that is simply no
longer feasible given our difficult budget climate by
including a flat $30 fee if the litigants in a very short
proceeding want a court reporter.
The California Official Court Reporters Association, a
co-sponsor of this bill, writes that "�u]p and down the state,
trial courts under incredible budget pressure have slashed the
services of official court reporters. Many more places offer no
reporting services at all for certain proceedings and simply
rely on litigants to provide their own private reporters or go
with none at all. This has a significant negative impact on the
ability of litigants to have an accurate record, in particular
those without the resources to ensure that a reporter is
present." Also a co-sponsor of the bill, the California Court
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Reporters Association adds, "in order to maximize the number of
mandated court reporter use fees collected, we propose that the
court reporter user fees should not only be imposed locally, but
most importantly, they should be retained locally." (Emphasis
in original.)
2. This bill seeks to incentivize courts to aggressively
collect court reporter fees but removes Judicial Council's
ability to redirect funds, as necessary, to adjust for budget
cuts
Existing law provides that for each civil trial court proceeding
lasting more than one hour, a fee equal to one-half day of
services shall be charged to the parties, on a pro rata basis,
and that the fees collected shall be used only to pay the cost
for services of an official court reporter in civil proceedings,
as specified. This bill seeks to incentivize courts to
aggressively collect court reporter fees by allowing them to
keep those fees that they collect and also requiring a $30 flat
fee for civil proceedings be charged for any proceedings lasting
less than one hour for which a court reporter is provided. The
courts would also retain any fees collected pursuant to this new
$30 fee. Similarly, this bill would mandate that, moving
forward, the $30 portion of specified civil filing fees that are
currently distributed to the TCTF instead be retained by the
court that collected it, while still requiring that it be used
for the services of an official court reporter in civil
proceedings. If a particular court does not provide for court
reporters in civil proceedings, the $30 portion of the civil
filing fees collected by that court would revert to the TCTF and
be distributed by Judicial Council to provide for the use of
court reporters in civil proceedings. Staff notes that,
essentially, those counties whose fees revert to the TCTF would
be funding the provision of services that are not available in
their own counties. In doing so, the bill would also remove the
Judicial Council's ability to allocate such funds to replace
reductions in general fund appropriations to the TCTF.
Proponents note that the current system has resulted in the
inconsistent and inefficient collection of fees from county to
county and that budget cuts have only worsened the situation for
court reporters and court reporting services. As noted by the
Northern California Court Reporters Association, "official court
reporters who work in the courtrooms of our state play a
critical and essential role in ensuring equal access to justice
for all. These highly specialized court-trained court reporters
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provide not only a verbatim record of civil proceedings, but
also perform a myriad of other functions, including being
available at all times to read back testimony to jurors,
providing an instant visual display of the proceedings to
judicial officers and protecting the integrity of the record
during all civil proceedings." Proponents of this bill, as
noted in the statements of the author and co-sponsors in Comment
1, above, believe that by allowing courts to retain the fees
they collect, this bill would greater incentivize the collection
of those fees.
On June 25, 2012, the author amended this bill in effort to help
address Judicial Council concerns about inadvertently lowering
filing fees in courts that do not provide for court reporters in
civil proceedings (therefore creating non-uniform civil filing
fees), and about removing the Judicial Council's flexibility to
evaluate options to keep court doors open during budget cuts.
As such, the bill currently provides that in trial courts where
official court reporting services are not provided in civil
proceedings, the $30 portion retained from these uniform filing
fees for court reporters shall instead revert to the TCTF for
redistribution to trial courts that do provide civil court
reporter services on a pro rata basis and require that they be
used to fund those services.
The Judicial Council notes that these amendments do not remove
their opposition to the bill and argue that:
Although the amendments do not risk loss of total filing fee
revenue, they would result in a significant reduction to some
courts, on top of all the budget reductions courts have been,
and will continue to grapple with. The council cannot support
reductions of this nature to trial court operations at this
time. Furthermore, the amendments pose a number of
implementation issues: are courts that provide reporters in
some civil law and motion hearings, but not all, and not in
civil trials, eligible to receive this funding? Are courts
eligible to receive this funding if they provider reporters in
family law, but not unlimited civil proceedings? What if a
court re-deployed court reporters in the middle of a month, is
the court eligible to receive the fee revenue for that month?
These are but a few examples of the implementation issues."
In light of these issues and ongoing efforts to achieve a
consensus on the distribution and use of the $30 portion of
civil filing fees, if this committee were to approve this bill,
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it should consider doing so with the commitment that the
proponents continue to work with the Judicial Council to resolve
their concerns.
3. Added filing fee for civil proceedings of less than one
hour
As noted above, this bill also allows the courts to retain fees
that were charged to parties by courts for the services of a
court reporter, and adds a flat $30 fee for any civil
proceedings lasting less than one hour for which court reporter
services were provided. The author notes that the proposal to
charge a fee for proceedings lasting under an hour was
originally recommended by the Legislative Analyst's Office and
was encouraged again in its April 2012 report. (California
Legislative Analyst Office, Managing Ongoing Reductions to the
Judicial Branch (April 2012) p. 10.) The Judicial Council has
not taken a position with regard to these specific provisions of
the bill because it had referred the matter and the intricacies
of its implementation to the council's Trial Court Budget
Working Group in 2010, and a subcommittee of the working group
has been focused on this issue and has been working on its
analysis and recommendations relating to this proposal.
Given the current constraints faced by the courts, it may be
difficult to provide these services free of charge simply
because they took less than one hour. At the same time,
litigants can only survive so many new costs being shifted over
onto them to make up for the cuts from the General Fund to the
courts. In light of these competing interests, a $30 fee does
not appear wholly unreasonable. Since the introduction of this
bill, however, similar language has since been added to a budget
trailer bill. In recognition of that fact, if this bill were to
be approved by this Committee, the author indicates to Staff
that she will be taking amendments to either remove this portion
from the bill or align it with the trailer bill and add
specificity as to when the fee is due and as to which party has
the duty to pay the fee.
Support : Alameda County Official Court Reporters Association;
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,
AFL-CIO; California State Council of the Service Employees
International Union; Fresno Superior Court Reporters; Laborers'
Local 777 & 792; Los Angeles County Court Reporters Association;
Northern California Court Reporters Association; Official Court
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Reporters of Stanislaus County; Orange County Superior Court
Reporters Association; Professional and Technical Engineers,
IFPTE Local 21; Sacramento Official Court Reporters; San Diego
County Court Employees Association; San Diego Superior Court
Reporters Association; one individual
Opposition : Judicial Council (oppose in part)
HISTORY
Source : California Court Reporters Association; California
Official Reporters Association
Related Pending Legislation : SB 1081 (Committee on Budget
&Fiscal Review) and AB 1481 (Committee on Budget & Fiscal
Review), among other things, provide that for each proceeding
lasting less than one hour, a fee of $30 shall be charged for
the reasonable cost of the services of an official court
reporter pursuant to Section 269 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
Prior Legislation : AB 233 (Escutia and Pringle, Chap. 850,
Stats. 199) See Background.
Prior Vote :
Assembly Floor (Ayes 60, Noes 11)
Assembly Appropriations Committee (Ayes 12, Noes 5)
Assembly Judiciary Committee (Ayes 8, Noes 0)
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