(The Recorder, 6/14/12)
State lawmakers are expected to adopt an annual budget on Friday that makes deep cuts to trial courts. But key policy questions, such as how much spending authority the Judicial Council should have over branchwide initiatives, won’t be addressed for days or possibly even weeks. Read More
(Courthouse News Service, 6/8/12)
In the wake of a scathing critique of California’s court bureaucracy, trial judges have targeted the General Counsel’s Office within that bureaucracy as inefficient, overstaffed and out of line… ”Managers within the AOC express concerns that the General Counsel regards herself as a ‘gatekeeper’ for matters that are put before the Judicial Council and that the General Counsel has inserted herself into the policy making functions of the Judicial Council, as opposed to the more appropriate role of providing legal services and advice,” they said in their report. Read More…
(The Recorder, 6/7/12)
The Administrative Office of the Courts on Thursday announced the layoffs of 29 workers, with the agency’s director warning that more staff reductions are coming. Read More…
(The Reporter, 4/1/12)
The Strategic Evaluation Committee’s report, unveiled during the heart of state budget negotiations, has offered
ammunition to both judges and lawmakers and their differing agendas for branch governance and administration… San Francisco Superior Court Presiding Judge Katherine Feinstein on Thursday warned that she and Los Angeles County Superior Court Presiding Judge Lee Smalley Edmon are “looking at a complete shuttering of our civil divisions” if the governor’s budget is enacted. Read More
(The Recorder, 5/29/12)
In a blistering indictment of the state’s judicial administration, a long-awaited report released Friday night concluded that the Administrative Office of the Courts is over-staffed, dysfunctional and less than forthcoming about sensitive issues… the AOC has “lost its focus” on serving the trial courts and assumed a more dominant, controlling role in its relationship with California’s 58 superior courts. Read More…
(Recorder, 5/18/12)
Overshadowed by the breathtaking $544 million cuts unveiled May 14 in Brown’s revised budget are the seeds of structural change the scope of which the judicial branch has not seen in 15 years. Brown wants to drain — eliminate, really — the bank accounts of individual trial courts, stripping them of locally controlled money that provides judges autonomy in an era of state-directed funding. Read More >>
(Law360, 5/18/12)
Just days after Gov. Jerry Brown proposed slashing the California judicial branch’s budget by $544 million, the interim state courts director revealed Thursday that previous budget reductions had taken a toll on the Administrative Office of the Courts, forcing it to eliminate about 180 employees by next month. Read More >>
At an emergency meeting of the Judicial Council Thursday, California’s finance director proposed a further centralization of court funding along with immediate layoffs and local budget cuts, proposals that judges viewed with great alarm. “We’re getting to the point where we are going to have to say uncle,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in an interview after the meeting. “The judicial branch has been really, really good, but we’re not that good.”
Saying courts have been largely spared in past cycles, the governor sweeps trial court reserves and construction funds into the state’s general fund. Read More
Gov. Jerry Brown will release his revised budget on May 14, and the question is no longer whether it will include more cuts to courts but rather how ugly will those cuts be.
