Is it too much to expect California's top judges to follow their own rules?

Apparently so.

The state Judicial Council recently passed new rules that give the judiciary, like the executive branch of California government, generally ten days to determine if a request for public records will be honored.

But this week, folks at the Council's administrative arm, which is called the Administrative Office of the Courts, told us our request will take 56 days. And that's just to determine if it will be honored. Not when.

The Administrative Office of the Courts now says that a whistle-blower's assertion that he was effectively demoted is false.

But the whistleblower, Michael Paul, says, "Ha! What a crock."

Paul says his advanced computer clearances have been rescinded and he has been assigned to advise the same people he blew the whistle on for allegedly allowing private vendors who maintain courthouses around the state to operate without required contractors' licenses and to overcharge for services. He said he has been assigned "to a project that I have documented is destined to fail in a very expensive way with no power to change it."

California court administrators on Tuesday effectively demoted the whistleblower who exposed their poor oversight of multimillion dollar contracts with private vendors.

The whistleblower, Michael Paul, charged that some of his colleagues at the Administrative Office of the Courts allowed private vendors who maintain courthouses around the state to operate without required contractors' licenses and to overcharge for services.

Paul told Accountable California Wednesday that he was stripped of his job as a senior information technology staff member and reassigned to what he described as "an irrelevant position with nothing to do" that reports to "the same guys I blew the whistle on."

Paul said he was told: "'Understand this is not retaliatory. We just need your skills somewhere else.'"

"At this point," he said, "I regret blowing the whistle."

There's more evidence of misplaced priorities at the court's top office. The Daily Journal has reported that the Administrative Office of the Courts authorized $4.2 million in raises for executives despite a freeze on promotions.

Over 15 months, the AOC promoted nearly 80 employees, and gave raises as high as 31 percent, the Daily Journal wrote. That includes a person in charge of a computer system whose costs have ballooned over the past few years.

In contrast, LA County court employees' 3% raises this year were wiped out when courts closed one day a month to the public. LA County court employees are not seeking raises in the current round of contract bargaining.

Melanie Miller, Court Services Supervisor in Inglewood, said she was "appalled" when she read the story. "I couldn't believe my eyes. I can't understand how they justify this when people are being furloughed," she said.

LA County court employees represented by SEIU have a plan to minimize the impact on California's justice system:

• Pushing for accountability in court spending through open budgets and books
• Exposing waste at the AOC, including a nearly $2 billion computer system that internal audits call "high-risk." Click here to read more about the computer system.
• Promoting cost-savings at LA Superior Court, the state's busiest court system

"The AOC needs to understand, with them giving raises and cutting services, it is not helping the problem, it is only making it worse," said Miller.

Click here to read the Daily Journal story on our website.

by Charley Mims
LAPMA President

Russell Strazzella, a fellow member of the Los Angeles Professional Managers' Association affiliated with SEIU 721, is featured with a quote in a new report by the National Employment Law Project that surveys state and local responsible contracting policies that create good jobs and deliver quality services, and recommends reforms at the federal level.

Released this summer, The Road to Responsible Contracting: Lessons from States and Cities for Ensuring That Federal Contracting Delivers Good Jobs and Quality Services examines our city's contractor responsibility program:

Efforts by state judicial leaders to develop a $1.7 billion new computer system are at "high risk" because of an aggressive schedule and a tight budget, an outside auditor has concluded.

Taxpayers have so far paid more than a third of a billion dollars to develop the system, which is intended to allow on line court filings, fine payments and access to case files and give the courts real-time ability to share records with law enforcement, social service and other government agencies.

The complex project has been in the public eye lately because of judicial leaders' state-budget-crisis decisions to keep the project alive while closing trial courts and furloughing court workers one day a month. Click here to read about court employees' reactions to the program's growth.

The project's outside auditor, Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting, has been warning since 2007 that certain aspects of its development were shaky, a review of its audits shows. The Administrative Office of the Courts made the auditor's reports public recently in response to a request from SEIU Local 721's Center for Public Accountability.

A month and a half ago, we started badgering communications office staff at the rapidly growing state Administrative Office of the Courts for information on how much its employees were paid.

We were interested because of the hard times facing the judicial system and its leaders' unprecedented decisions to save money by closing courts one day a month and furloughing our members.

Forty-four days later, we finally got our answer.

The Los Angeles Times upped the ante this week following our recent report on high-paid nonprofit health and human service executives. The Times' Alan Zarembo found a publicly-funded, Torrance-based job training charity for the developmentally disabled, Social Vocational Services, whose executive director collects an annual salary of $872,311 while his wife, the associate executive director, pulls down another $606,862. For more on the couple's perks and the charity's unusual history, check out the article.