SEIU Local 721

Court Blocks Quick Access to Financial Documents

2010-02-12T17:32:31Z

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.

]]> records that will allow us to evaluate how efficiently the top judges and their administrators are performing their new function of running courthouse physical plants around the state.

At a time when judicial leaders say they do not have enough funds to keep courthouses open every day and are planning layoffs, we think it is important to know if they are also wasting big bucks.

So, among other things, we have asked to see contracts with one of the building and maintenance companies they have hired to run the courthouses.

We've also asked to see the company's bills.

Can there really be a question of entitlement here?

We'll let you know when we find out at the end of March.

That's when we'll learn if the judges consider how they spend public money to be public business.

--Ted Rohrlich

Courts' Whistleblower Update

2009-12-28T17:24:54Z

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Paul says his advanced computer clearances have been rescinded and he has been assigned to advise the same people he blew the whistle on for allegedly allowing private vendors who maintain courthouses around the state to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."
]]> Here is the Administrative Office of the Courts' full statement:

"Mr. Paul's suggestion that he has been 'demoted' is factually incorrect. His job duties have been clarified to conform with what he has in fact been doing for the past 18 months, and there has been no change in his title, principal job duties, or salary.

"As a result of the transfers of hundreds of court facilities and undertaking work on numerous court construction projects, there has been a dramatic increase in the volume of court maintenance, repair, and construction over the past 18 months. Over this period, Mr. Paul's work has focused more on providing support on projects with the Office of Court Construction and Management (OCCM), and less with other divisions of the AOC he had previously been supporting.

"In light of significant increases in Mr. Paul's workload, his manager expressed concern several weeks ago that he was being stretched too thin and asked him in which area he thought he could add the most value. Mr. Paul said that his preference was to continue working with OCCM on building automation systems. That is precisely what has been identified as his principal area of responsibility going forward."

- Ted Rohrlich

Click here to read more on AccountableCalifornia.org about misplaced priorities at the court's top office.

Courts to Whistleblower: Thanks, You're Demoted

2009-12-16T23:17:09Z

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."
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Its spokesman, Philip Carrizosa, said Wednesday that he could not comment on Paul's job situation "because it's a personnel issue." Carrizosa was reached at home because the Administrative Office of the Courts, along with courthouses around the state, is closed the third Wednesday of every month to save money.

Paul privately provided his superiors with information on the unlicensed contractors months ago and went public with the story of how he became a whistleblower and his frustrations with his employer after the lawsuits were filed.

The contractors are subsidiaries of the giant Jacobs Engineering Group, whose spokeswoman did not return telephone calls seeking comment, and a smaller firm, Aleut Global Solutions, whose attorney declined comment. The courts contracted with these firms to maintain hundreds of courthouses that counties have turned over to the state as part of the judicial system's consolidation.

One of the lawsuits, brought by the state attorney general's office on behalf of the judiciary, alleges that Aleut never had a contractor's license despite an agreement with the courts that specifically required it to have one. No one at the Administrative Office of the Courts apparently ever checked. The lawsuit seeks to void the contract and to compel Aleut to return all fees it was paid.

A separate lawsuit against the Jacobs' subsidiaries, Jacobs Facilities Inc. and Jacobs Property Management Company, alleges that they had the required contractor's license when they began work in 2006 but let it lapse a year ago. That lawsuit also seeks repayment of all state funds.

In going public, Paul posted extensive comments and correspondence on a legal blog that carried an article about the lawsuits.

Paul wrote that he noticed problems three years ago when he proposed automated controls for lighting, heating and air conditioning in courthouses that he said would save the judiciary hundreds of millions of dollars in utility bills annually. He said he was "floored" when officials of the Administrative Office of the Courts' facilities management unit-where he has now been assigned to work on the same subject as a consultant-shot him down.

A few months after his proposal was rejected, he wrote, he was asked to help solve a temperature control problem at one courthouse. But he said senior managers in the facilities unit called him off again, assigning the problem to Jacobs and paying it $20,000 for a study that he said was plagiarized. He wrote that Jacobs turned in a study that was irrelevant to the courthouse problem and was in fact "an old draft study commissioned by the Army Corps of Engineers that was word for word pulled off the Internet."

He said he later learned that Jacobs was overcharging on many projects. He made no specific overcharging allegations against Aleut.

"It became a sad, inside joke amongst the engineering staff I worked with that having Team Jacobs change a light bulb not only took four people to accomplish," he wrote, "but the cost of changing that light bulb cost two grand-the minimum value of a service work order from the Facilities Management Unit."

- Ted Rohrlich

Top Court Executives Got Raises, Report Says

2009-12-10T19:12:33Z

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.

]]> Tough Times Aside, Court Administrative Doles Out Raises, Perks

By Amy Yarbrough
Daily Journal Staff Writer
December 9, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Despite fiscal woes so deep courthouses are closing once a month, the Administrative Office of the Courts has given out hefty raises, promotions and extra paid vacation time to employees to compensate them for furlough days, a Daily Journal analysis of state finance records has found.

Between February 2008 and July 2009, the AOC elevated nearly 80 employees, and raised their pay as much as 31 percent, brushing aside its own self-imposed freeze on promotions, according to payroll records from the State Controller's Office.

The records show that while the agency imposed once-monthly furlough days on employees with one hand, it has increased salaries so much with the other that, coupled with new hires, its payroll costs grew 6 percent from July 2008 to July 2009, for a total of nearly $4.2 million per year.

William Vickrey, administrative director of the courts, said promotions given since the freeze were limited to critical positions and were allowed only through a rigorous exemption process. Most of the raises, he said, were 3.5 percent merit increases authorized by Chief Justice Ronald M. George for both the AOC and the appellate courts.

In July, the AOC froze all merit salary increases, Vickrey said, pointing out the state's Executive Branch gives its employees similar step increases, but at 5 percent.

"We felt that we could continue to provide the merit salary adjustments just as the executive branch and our courts have done," Vickrey said. "I want to continue to do all we can possibly do to treat our employees as fairly as possible under the circumstances."

Los Angeles County Superior Court employees represented by Service Employees International Union received a 3 percent pay increase on July 1, according to Michael Soller, a spokesman for SEIU Local 721.

The nearly 1,000-employee AOC has been under fire from unions and others for its spending in the months since the judiciary's budget soured along with the state's economy. It has been repeatedly criticized for its spending decisions, including the continuation of long-sought construction and computer programs that some have said should be shelved until the budget improves.

Between July 2008 and July 2009, the average raise for AOC's non-hourly employees was 3.76 percent, according to the Daily Journal's analysis, only slightly above the 3.5 Vickrey said was given as a merit increase. But a number of other employees got bigger raises, some as high as 14 percent.

Philip Carrizosa, a spokesman for the AOC, said in an e-mail that some of the outsized raises were necessary to keep top-level employees. He said others received big raises because of "increased job responsibilities," even though their job titles did not change.

"In most instances, the employee was at the lower end of the salary range for their position and raises were made within the salary range without promoting the employee to a new job classification," Carrizosa wrote in the e-mail.

San Diego County Judge Daniel Goldstein, one of the leaders of the Alliance of California Judges, said the fact the AOC would give raises at a time when some trial courts have instituted layoffs underscores the need for greater oversight of the agency.

"It's offensive, that's what it is," Goldstein said.

Those who were promoted received even bigger salary increases. William Griffiths, a manager, received a 31 percent raise upon his promotion from a senior budget analyst, for instance.

Two managers in the agency's Office of Court Construction and Management, who were not promoted, received 14 percent raises between July 2008 and July 2009, on top of 3.5 merit salary adjustments they'd received earlier in 2008. Another manager in that office received a 9 percent raise.

The raises do not take into account the 5 percent pay cut employees are taking as a result of the furlough.

Carrizosa said the three employees received raises when the new director, Lee Willoughby, took over and gave them added responsibilities.

"The raises reflect his restructuring of the office and changes of assignments and related equity adjustments," Carrizosa wrote.

AOC's three regional administrative directors who report to Vickrey, Sheila Calabro, Christine Patton, and Jody Patel also saw big pay bumps, each receiving 10 percent increases in that 2008-2009 time period, bringing their base salaries to $198,708 a year.

According to Carrizosa, those pay raises included that 3.5 percent merit increase. The additional compensation was, "based on the need to remain competitive with other courts.

"As you are probably aware, some courts pay their court executives more than the AOC pays its executive staff," he wrote.

Base salaries for court executives who oversee the state's trial courts range from $78,000 for Amador County to $229,000 for Contra Costa County, according to a recent compensation survey by the AOC. Many court executives also receive generous benefit packages.

"We did what we thought we needed to do to hold onto people we felt were valuable employees," Vickery said.

In addition to the raises, the AOC has been also been offering its employees some other perks.

Before the monthly days off became mandatory, the agency launched a voluntary furlough program, which ran January 1 though June 30, to help save the agency money. In exchange for each month they took a furlough day, the AOC was offering employees a day of paid leave that could be banked for future use, according to a Nov. 18, 2008 memo written by Vickrey.

"We lose a day of their productivity when they take leave, but we spent less as a result that year," he said.

Although many received raises, employees were not given an additional cost-of-living increase last fiscal year as they have in other years. Because of that and because the merit raises were smaller than in years past, Vickery's memo said, employees were also given three extra paid days off between Thanksgiving and Jan. 2, 2009.

LA City Manager Featured in New National Survey

2009-12-01T20:13:45Z

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:

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Los Angeles adopted a comprehensive "responsible contractor policy" in 2000. Like the state policies discussed, it directs city agencies to review potential bidders' history of labor, employment, environmental and workplace safety violations, and uses a detailed questionnaire asking bidders to disclose and explain past and pending litigation, past contract suspensions, and outstanding judgments. Full transparency is a key feature of the Los Angeles policy, which makes bidders' responses to the questionnaire subject to public review. This allows the public to assist the agency in its review process by providing relevant information that the applicants may not have volunteered. A catalog of responsible contractor and prequalification laws from across the nation is available from the National Alliance for Fair Contracting.

As Russell Strazzella, a Chief Construction Inspector for the Los Angeles Bureau of Contract Administration explained, "[front end responsibility screening] is more effective and more beneficial to the public than a reactionary system. When you get a bad contractor on the back end, they've already done the damage, and then it's a costly process of kicking them out. On the other hand, if you have a very strong prequalification system that can be vigorously enforced and a uniform system of rating bidders that is published--so everyone knows where they stand before they compete--then you get a level playing field and a pool of [better] contractors."

In addition to the responsible contractor policy, LAMPA members have worked with SEIU 721 to win strong contract language that sets specific guidelines for contracting out of services and encourages work to be contracted back to city employees.

Responsible contracting policies of California and San Francisco are also noted in The Road to Responsible Contracting from the National Employment Law Project, which promotes policies to create good jobs, enforce workplace rights and help unemployed workers regain their economic footing.

Check out the report by downloading a copy of The Road to Responsible Contracting >>

Should the 'High Risk' Court Computer System Be Cause for Public Alarm?

2009-11-24T18:38:38Z

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.

]]> It said in its September report to the Administrative Office of the Courts, the staff arm of California's Judicial Council, that "the overall health of the [computer] project continu[es] to be mixed."

Click here to read the progress report about the AOC's case management system (pdf)

But neither the auditor nor the AOC was helpful in assessing whether the characterizations of the project should be cause for worry.

Consulting firm partner Marianne Evashenk, California state government's former deputy chief auditor, explained in an e-mail: "We cannot comment on work we do for others."

John Judnick, senior manager of internal audits for the Judicial Council and AOC, was vague. He said that "high risk" just meant the project costs a lot, will be used by a lot of people and is important.

As for the project's mixed health, he directed our attention to the "Project Scorecard" section of the report, which features illustrations of yellow and green-colored shapes next to text blocks on specific technical issues. He noted there were nine green shapes and six yellow warning shapes. That's why, he said, the health of the project was deemed "mixed."

- Ted Rohrlich

Update: California Court Finally Provides Salary Data

2009-11-10T15:38:55Z

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. ]]>
Thirty-five others make more than $150,000.

And 253 -- or 27% of the agency's 948 staffers -- are paid at a rate of at least $100,000 a year.

These figures did not astonish us. Vickrey had explained at a recent legislative hearing on a billion-dollar-plus computer system his agency is developing that it has had to employ more highly educated workers as it has taken on from the counties increasing responsibilities to run the courts.

But the issue isn't pay as much as it is transparency.

"The AOC doesn't seem to be getting the message that it is a public agency, responsible to the taxpayers," said LA County Court Reporter Buford James, who was at the hearing.

At the same hearing, Vickrey told legislators that his office regards salary information as public. This puzzled us at the time because, by then, we had made repeated, unsuccessful attempts to get that salary information by following instructions on the AOC's website and following up with telephone calls.

When the information finally arrived, it came with an explanation. The AOC never intended to stiff us, we were told. We were just a victim of snafus.

That's actually encouraging. It is a departure from the traditional, secretive, "trust us" attitude of the courts bureaucracy.

But in some areas that is proving difficult to jettison.

For instance, on the computer front, the Administrative Office of the Courts puts the cost of the new system at $1.7 billion - sort of.

That figure, the AOC says, unfairly counts $180 million for interim systems developed along the way. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Daily Journal reports that the AOC is not counting millions spent by trial courts in individual counties. And the Sacramento Bee estimates the final price tag at $2 billion.

It remains hard to know whom to trust.

-Ted Rohrlich

Couple Earns $1.5 Million a Year Running Publicly-Supported Nonprofit

2009-11-03T19:40:41Z

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.

Executives at Publicly-Funded Nonprofits Make Big Bucks Serving the Needy

2009-10-27T16:24:48Z

What can be more lucrative--running a relatively small nonprofit with government funds or running the government?

The answer? Running the nonprofit.

At least six publicly supported Los Angeles County health or human service nonprofits reported on their public tax returns that they paid their chief executives more than $300,000 per year.

That is $50,000 more than Los Angeles pays its superintendent of schools, Ramon Cortines, who the Los Angeles Times touts as one of the nation's most experienced educators. Cortines, who oversees a $13 billion operation that serves nearly 700,000 youngsters, gets paid $250,000 per year.

Nik Gupta, an accountant, makes twice that running a $7 million a year, private, nonprofit, San Fernando Valley-based public health clinic, Mission City Community Network, which provides medical services to the indigent and uninsured.
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Gupta said his $531,652 annual salary actually saves the nonprofit money because he does three jobs. "I'm not just CEO," he said in an interview in his cramped, windowless office at Mission City's worn main clinic in North Hills. "I'm also CFO and CIO [chief financial officer and chief information officer]." Gupta said he works seven days a week.

He was the highest paid executive in a review by the Center for Public Accountability of payroll information for Southern California health and human services nonprofits which are partly funded with tax dollars obtained through Los Angeles County contracts. The review found that six of these agencies reported paying more than $300,000 per year to at least one executive. Hospitals were not included in the review.

[All compensation data used in this report was compiled by Guidestar from public tax returns (Forms 990) that nonprofits are required to file. This self-reported data is only rarely reviewed by the IRS, and thus may be incomplete. CPA is solely responsible for the analysis.]

It turns out that only a small minority of nonprofits pay their executives more than $200,000. Guidestar's database includes more than 9,000 Southern California charities of all types. That database shows that fewer than 10% had an executive paid $200,000 or more. Many were paid much less.

The Internal Revenue Code section that sets the rules governing compensation at public charities, also known as "501c3 organizations," specifies that "No part of the net earnings of a section 501(c)(3) organization may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual." However, it gives each nonprofit's board of directors latitude in deciding how much to pay top managers. The IRS does require that the non-profit's board have an objective process for setting executive salaries, including use of comparisons with salaries paid by similar organizations for similar services. Without a reasonable basis, a nonprofit that normally pays no taxes could be taxed for paying excess benefits to an insider.

In Gupta's case, the Mission City board of directors decided in 2007 to more than double his salary of $264,280 in recognition of his having put the once-struggling nonprofit on a sound financial footing, and as a safeguard against him leaving for more lucrative health care consulting work, according to then-treasurer Jerry Scharlin. Mission City has big plans to grow, said Scharlin, a former director of Los Angeles' Community Redevelopment Agency, and has applied for $12 million in federal grants to help build a large new facility.

Driving the board's decision was a belief that Gupta had no heir apparent. "We knew if he left, the place would shut down," Scharlin said. "He is Mission City."

The board also decided to make Gupta eligible for an incentive bonus, Scharlin said. "As long as there is some money being made, the board felt I should get something," Gupta said. He declined to provide a copy of his contract, which he said was approved by the nonprofit's attorney, citing privacy concerns.

Gupta and Scharlin go way back. Gupta worked with Scharlin years ago at a private corporate turnaround firm and invited him to join the Mission City board when he became executive director in fiscal year 2001-2002. Scharlin became Mission City's $120,000-a-year COO in January and left its board.

In general, the federal government imposes a usual $196,000 limit on how much of a non-profit executive's salary can be paid with federal funds. Officials of Los Angeles County, which often serves as a pass through for federal money, say they rely on federal authorities to assure compliance with this standard.

A nonprofit can easily get around the standard by reporting that private funds--including tax-exempt donations or fees paid by poor clients seeking services--are used to pay the portion of salary which exceeds $196,000.

Mission City reports receiving about $700,000 a year from non-government sources, including "receipts from patients."

Tarzana Treatment Center, a largely publicly-funded, $45 million a year substance abuse agency, has explained that it too uses private funds--for example, payments by clients with health insurance--to cover much of its top executives' salaries. It pays its chief operating officer, Albert Senella, $428,000, and pays its chief executive, Scott Taylor, $330,000. Taylor, a lawyer, gets an additional $238,000 in legal fees.

The Center for Public Accountability has reported extensively on Tarzana Treatment Center and asked the state attorney general's office to investigate its leadership. Some of its leaders, including Senella and Taylor, overcharge in renting facilities they own to the nonprofit, county auditors have concluded.

Other relatively small, government-supported Southern California human service nonprofits that pay their executives well include:

The Children's Home Society of California, which pays its president, James T. Spradley Jr., $467,000. He runs a $100 million a year organization that reports 95% of its funds come from state and local governments. The government interest is mainly to help poor families afford child care. Spradley did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
ChildNet Youth and Family Services, which paid its president, Robert Di Stefano, $451,000 to run a $22 million a year organization in fiscal year 2007-2008. ChildNet reports that it gets 97% of its funds from the government. It uses them mainly to place children in foster homes and provide counseling to children and their families. DiStefano took a big pay cut the next year, a spokesman said. The nonprofit's board slashed his pay to $300,000 so that it could afford to hire a chief operating officer to groom as his successor without increasing overall administrative costs.
AltaMed Health Services, which pays its chief executive, Castulo de la Rocha, $396,000. He runs a $110 million a year organization that operates public health clinics and adult care centers. De la Rocha did not return telephone calls. But board chair Stuart Gray issued a statement saying that de la Rocha had built the nonprofit from a three-employee storefront and that the board sought guidance from a national executive compensation firm in determining fair pay.
Pacific Clinics, which pays its president and chief executive Susan Mandel $376,000. She oversees an $87 million a year mental health organization heavily dependent on government funding. Mandel did not respond to a voice mail message.

Tracking the Dollars

Click on the name of the organization to view its latest tax return.

Mission City Community Network	Nik Gupta	CEO and CFO	$531,652
Children's Home Society of California	James T. Spradley	President	$467,508
ChildNet Youth and Family Services	Robert Di Stefano	President and CEO	$451,589
Tarzana Treatment Center	Al Senella	COO	$428,057
AltaMed Health Services	Castulo de la Rocha	President and CEO	$396,416
Pacific Clinics	Susan Mandel	President and CEO	$376,514
Tarzana Treatment Center	Scott Taylor	CEO	$330,732

Overpaid Charity Bosses Beware: The Internal Revenue Service Is Watching You

2009-10-27T03:24:11Z

Just a few days ago, AccountableCalifornia.org said the IRS "gives each nonprofit's board of directors latitude in deciding how much to pay top managers." Now, reports the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the IRS is "delving deeply into the matter of compensation of highly paid officials." At a national conference of state charity regulators and legal experts, IRS Exempt Organizations chief Lois Lerner expressed skepticism about the "comparability" studies tax-exempt groups use to justify executive pay. "We're going to be looking deeper into the comparables to determine whether they are really comparable, she pledged. She also expressed concern that nonprofits may be pegging salaries to the top of a "comparable" range, placing executive salaries on an escalator. Her talk focused mainly on colleges and universities, but other nonprofits could feel the impact. Full details available at the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

--Steve Askin, Director, the Center for Public Accountability

Massive Court Spending Triggers a Call for Accountability

2009-10-26T22:34:42Z

Linda Mascorro has worked at the Pomona court for 19 years, and when she read that a new computer system to link California's courthouses could cost $2 billion, she said, "I was shocked. How do they justify any of this? They're serving justice, how do they justify this to the public?"

The courts' massive spending on computer systems and new courthouses is happening without public debate or legislative oversight, the Daily Journal and Sacramento Bee have reported. Meanwhile courts are closed one day a month, and employees like Mascorro who deal with family law say that's disrupting services to families and children, failing to address rising elder abuse and adding to backlogs.

Accountability in the state's sprawling court system is the topic of a special legislative hearing in Sacramento on October 28.

]]> Court Employees Launch 4-Point Plan for Open Courts

Court employees have linked up with judges, law enforcement and children's advocates to demand that the Administrative Office of the Courts, which oversees California's busy trial courts, crack open its books and share its priorities with the public. Unlike nearly every state agency, the $3.6-billion courts bureaucracy is not required to hold public meetings, release its budgets or require independent audits. Before the hearing they released a four-point accountability plan:

Prioritize serving and protecting the public
Open records and budgets
Open meetings
Require independent audits

Click here to read our Accountability Plan for AOC (pdf)

$2 Billion and Counting for Computers at the Courts

The court's $2 billion case management system is exhibit A in the call for accountability. Court employees say that using technology to shorten waits and improve access to the courts should be a top priority. But those who have used it question whether it is worth the expense in the current economic crisis.

"How much more money are the courts going to have to spend to fix problems with this system -- and make it truly useful for the public?" asked Helen Ariizumi, Court Services Assistant III at the Alhambra courthouse.

She said that unlike the current system the massive new program did not allow electronic filing. "For people who don't live near court, or who work and can't come into our courts during business hours, they're taking away a great service."

While the system may benefit those filing multiple cases, a cumbersome data-entry process has added to wait times for average court users - those most affected by the poor economy and the court closures.

Judges Join Court Employees' Call for Open Courts

Dozens of judges across the state have joined with court employees and law enforcement in calling for open courts and open books.

"Our priorities have always been that the courts remain open under all circumstances," said Tom Hollenhorst, associate justice of the state Court of Appeal, on a conference call with reporters. "Closures have a terrible effect on the court system."

The AOC is supposed to be accountable to the Legislature, but the Sacramento Bee and Daily Journal have detailed how top court leaders have made spending decisions in secret and failed to disclose financial information to the public. Click here to read the Daily Journal story on our website.

While county courts have been forced to lay off employees and cut services, the AOC continues to hire high-priced employees. In fact, the AOC staff has grown from 490 to 901 since 2004, and the AOC continues to hire despite a hiring freeze. One-third of AOC employees earn at least $100,000 a year.

The Center for Public Accountability at SEIU 721 filed a routine request for public information in September: who works at the state's Administrative Office of the Courts and how much they get paid. According to a 2007 Supreme Court opinion by Chief Justice Ron George, salary information is "in many cases necessary to disclose inefficiency, favoritism, nepotism and fraud with respect to the government's use of public funds." Despite that, the Center has not received a response.

Open Government? Not at the Courts

2009-10-22T18:40:08Z

California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George says he's committed to open government.

But officials who administer the state's court system apparently haven't gotten the message.

They have effectively denied a routine request for public information: who works at the state's Administrative Office of the Courts and how much they get paid.

]]> George himself wrote the lead opinion in a 2007 Supreme Court decision that would seem to have made granting such a request a no-brainer.

When a newspaper requested salaries of a group of top-paid public employees, George wrote that the public's need for accountability demanded open records. Citing a lower court case, he said such information is "in many cases necessary to disclose inefficiency, favoritism, nepotism and fraud with respect to the government's use of public funds" (International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers v. the Superior Court of Alameda County). Click here to search the full opinion.

Aware of George's opinion, a researcher at SEIU 721's Center for Public Accountability asked the Administrative Office of the Courts to provide names and salary information a month ago.

AOC employees are helping to make unprecedented decisions to close courthouses and furlough court workers while preserving expensive programs such as development of a billion dollar-plus computer system.

We are not the only ones who are interested in how the AOC is spending its money. As the San Jose Mercury-News put it in a recent article, "The agency has ballooned in size, cost, power and stature in recent years, reaching its peak at a time when the rest of California government is struggling with budget deficits and cutbacks in everything from education to programs for the poor and elderly." Click here to read the article.

Six days after our request, having received no response, the researcher spoke with the AOC's designated media contact, Philip Carrizosa, who said he believed the requested information was public, even though the judiciary was not subject to the California Public Records Act, and readily available. He expressed surprise that the AOC had not acknowledged the Center's request.

Three weeks later, the Center still has no answer and no acknowledgement from the AOC despite two more conversations with Carrizosa, who said each time that he would check with those handling the request.

So much for open government at the courts. - Ted Rohrlich

SEIU Court Employees Shocked by Runaway Computer Costs

2009-10-09T23:22:22Z

The Administrative Office of the Court's statewide computer system will cost $1.75 billion, 35 percent more than the agency said it would cost in a recent memorandum, the Daily Journal newspaper has found.

SEIU 721 members have repeatedly asked the AOC to open its books and reveal the true cost of the computer system. Court reporter Arnella Sims, a member of the SEIU 721 executive board, compared the $1.75 billion program to "recreating Microsoft."

"It's beyond my comprehension how we can have such a costly software system with what appear to be runaway costs that no one is scrutinizing," she told the Daily Journal.

]]> Cost overruns, missed deadlines and runaway private contracts have plagued the system, which is expected to cost 5 times higher than 2006 projections, and be completed 3 years late.

The article shows that the AOC ignored earlier warnings about the cost and lack of oversight. A February 2004 report by the Legislative Analyst's Office warned that "the state's financial exposure is potentially significant." The AOC did not provide legislators with

"How much the program will ultimately cost is still unclear," the Daily Journal states.

Read the full article below:

Cost of Court Case Management System Grows By a Third
Budget for Statewide Court Case Management System Keeps Growing

Amy Yarbrough
Daily Journal
Friday, Oct. 9, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - The Administrative Office of the Court's statewide computer system is expected to cost $1.75 billion to develop and implement, 35 percent more than the agency said it would cost in a recent memorandum to state judges, the Daily Journal has found.

"Total investment... including development, licensing, data integration, and deployment for all case types through 58 courts, is estimated at $1.3 billion over the life of the project," states a memo posted in August on an internal court Web site.

But according to an AOC report to state lawmakers, the agency spent $324.8 million on the California Case Management System from Fiscal 2002-03 to Fiscal 2007-08. A spreadsheet the agency provided to the state Department of Finance in January projected more than $1.4 billion in additional expenses for CCMS through completion, for a total of $1.75 billion.

The sum is nearly five times more than what the agency expected the project to cost in 2006, and the system will be completed no sooner than 2013, three years later than expected. Philip Carrizosa, an AOC spokesman, confirmed the $1.4 billion in projected expenses.

He took issue, though, with adding that figure to the sum already spent to come up with a total figure for the project, saying those earlier expenses were for "interim" products that are not part of the ultimate computer system.

"It would be misleading to call it all CCMS," Carrizosa said.

The agency's own documents dating back to 2006, however, address those products, called V2 and V3, as part of CCMS and imply they are key to the system.

Carrizosa also said the agency has recently found ways to save money on the project so it may come in at less than what was projected in January.

Arnella Sims, a court reporter and a member of SEIU Local 721 in Los Angeles, called the $1.75 billion estimate, "quite extraordinary," and likened it to "recreating Microsoft."

"It's beyond my comprehension how we can have such a costly software system with what appear to be runaway costs that no one is scrutinizing," Sims said.

Lt. Wayne Bilowit, a lobbyist for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office who has voiced loud concerns about the AOC shutting down courts while continuing to spend on big projects, said he found the figure "shocking."

He said his agency is overhauling its own computer system - which includes case information, statistics and warrants - for $37 million, about 2 percent of what the AOC is spending.

"I don't have any idea what they are doing here," Bilowit said.

CCMS is much larger in scope. It is intended to replace more than 70 different case management systems used in the state's trial courts, many of which the agency says are outdated or failing.

The memo on the judges' Web site touts its importance, stating that "CCMS will improve public safety, make courts more efficient, and enhance public access."

Calling it "a computer system," the memo states, "is like saying that the Internet is another way to send mail."

The project was one of the first the AOC took on after the Trial Court Funding Act of 1997 removed management of the state's former superior and municipal courts from counties and brought it under the AOC's control.

By 1998, the agency had already awarded $671,000 to 10 counties "to begin defining system requirements or to procure a new [computer] system," according to the Legislative Analyst's Office.

The agency wanted the Legislature to approve an additional $305,000 that year to hire two staffers to begin initial development "of a state-sponsored automated trial court case management system" to be tried in 10 counties. Neither of those figures are included in later reports on the project's costs.

In 2001, the project officially launched with $21 million in seed money approved by the Legislature from judicial branch special funds - the Trial Court Improvement Fund and the Modernization Fund.

The agency said it is unable to provide budgets or a timeline for the project from 2001.

It also said that, even if it had them, they would not be accurate because the project has evolved from those early stages to something much more ambitious.

When it's completed, AOC officials said, the new case management system will allow courts all over the state to share cases and other information and allow law enforcement agencies to easily access court orders and connect with the Department of Justice's domestic violence and protective order registry.

The new system will cover every kind of case - from traffic to probate and everything in-between.

Ron Overholt, chief deputy director of the AOC, said the agency did not envision such an all-encompassing project until relatively recently, despite the earlier discussions in state records.

He said that initially the project involved only four neighboring superior courts - in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties - that wanted to develop a common system.

Overholt said it wasn't until 2002 that the Judicial Council asked the AOC to develop an infrastructure for all the courts in the state.

"That sort of began the evaluation of this," he said. "I'm not sure any of us envisioned a statewide system for all case types and all courts."

Indeed, there appear to have been changes to the project along the way.

Between 2007 and 2008, it appears the AOC decided to add court reporter and court interpreter scheduling to the system, as well as other functions that will allow CCMS to communicate with law enforcement systems, according to reports the agency provided to the Legislature.

But even very early on, some regarded CCMS as a maverick project with inadequate oversight.

In a February 2004 report, the Legislative Analyst's Office warned there was too little scrutiny and controls on CCMS - and a companion project to create a statewide accounting system - and that "the state's financial exposure is potentially significant."

The executive branch is required to submit risk mitigations and oversight plans before undertaking technology projects, the LAO noted. But there is no such requirement on the courts.

Instead of being subject to legislative scrutiny, internally appointed steering committees that "do not have adequate information to do their job effectively" were overseeing the massive technology upgrades, the report said.

It notes the AOC had provided no information as to the projected cost at each major phase of the project.

"Without such information, we do not believe that AOC's steering committees will be able to effectively monitor the projects. This places the courts at greater risk for cost overruns, and delays for lack of adequate funding to complete the projects," the report read.

At the time, the AOC had spent $32.4 million on CCMS and the LAO said it "could cost up to several tens of millions more" before its then-expected completion in 2009.

Since then, the budget has been revised and the completion date pushed out many times.
In the Spring of 2006, the agency was projecting a time frame for completion of 2009-10, according to an AOC document. But in a report to the Legislature less than a year later, in December 2006, the agency moved that date to 2011-12. In 2008, the agency again pushed out the completion date to 2013.

The increases in cost projections for the project have been even more striking.

In its 2006 "funding model" the AOC estimated the overall costs of the project to be $357 million with a completion date in 2009-10, a fraction of today's estimate.

Development, consulting and hardware and software costs have ballooned more than other categories of expenses, and appear to continue on an upward climb.

In December 2006, the AOC had forecast spending about $2 million for "additional development" for fiscal years 2006-07 and 2007-08. But two years later, the agency reported to the Legislature having instead spent an astonishing $87 million in "additional development" during that time and projecting another $28 million in that category of expenses by June 2010.

The agency also spent $8 million more than projected in consulting and $24 million more than projected for hardware and software in 2006-07 and 2007-08. Last year, it budgeted an additional $34 million in consulting and $38 million in hardware that it expected to spend by next June.

Officials said at least some of the additional sums were for an expanded contract with systems developer Deloitte Consulting to add, among other things, functions that will allow CCMS to communicate with law enforcement systems.

Driven in part by continued expansions, annual spending on the project has grown exponentially year on year, from about $20 million spent in Fiscal 2004-2005, to $123 million spent in 2006-2007, to a projected $435 million in 2011-2012.

How much the program will ultimately cost is still unclear. Budget constraints have required the agency to use $105 million originally intended for the project to instead fill other holes in the courts' budget.

Because of the state's fiscal crisis, the AOC now says CCMS's completion date is up in the air, despite its vendor contract. It also says the source of funds to deploy the project are now unclear, making the final cost just as hazy.

In its August memo, the agency said a delay of even one year could cause overruns of as much as $240 million.

Librarians Agree, Primary Job is Serving the Public

2009-10-06T17:49:47Z

Librarians have a plan that would improve book selection at local libraries and save Los Angeles County money. But the library department doesn't want to hear it.

]]> In a Sunday front page article in the Los Angeles Daily News, library staff detailed their plan to enhance book purchasing in the county.

County Librarian Margaret Donellan Todd took an interesting approach to librarians' suggestion they can improve the publics' experience at the 84 county libraries that serve 3.5 million residents in 51 cities and unincorporated areas.

"It's hard though, I know, because librarians love to select books," Todd said in the Daily News. "They love to personally pick out the books, but that's really not the primary job of our community library staff. Their primary job is to serve the public."

Librarians have testified in front of the LA County Board of Supervisors and met with library management to explain the problems with centralized book purchasing and how to fix it to better serve the public.

Kim Peters, a library worker and SEIU 721 steward, talked about the barriers to reordering a popular book like Dr. Seuss' "The Cat in the Hat."

"We can't order books for our library. We have to rely on whatever 'downtown' orders for us."

"In just one small-size community library over the past two years, the centralized selection process has purchased approximately $35,000 worth of materials that have never been checked out. And at the same time, $21,000 of materials have only been checked out once in two years. When you multiply that over 85 libraries, that's millions of misspent dollars."

SEIU 721 President Bob Schoonover explained the library proposal this way:

"When tax dollars are really precious, I think we have to take the time to examine some of these things, and if we have a large number of books at the library that nobody is checking out, I think the taxpayers are telling us the wrong books are in the library."

Read the full article here. Read the San Gabriel Valley Tribune's take on the issue here.

LA City :: Bike Safe Grating Replacement Project

2009-10-06T00:36:37Z

The City of Los Angeles requests proposals to upgrade approximately 700 existing roadway grates to bike safe grates near or along bike paths, bike lanes, and bike routes as well as transit hub areas throughout the City of Los Angeles.

]]> >Bid number: 8140
>>Proposals due: November 18, 2009
>>Notes: The estimated budget for this project is $2.42 million.
>>More information: Los Angeles Business Assistance Virtual Network

What do you think?

Review this request--and then make your recommendations and suggestions in the comment section below.

>>Review this request (pdf)
>>Click here for tips on how to analyze a RFP