By John Tanner
SEIU 721 Executive Director
Note: This blog post ran as an op-ed in the Daily Journal, one of California’s leading legal newspapers, on Tuesday, April 6.
There’s a bona-fide budget crisis hitting California’s courts and Los Angeles’ packed courthouses. Courtrooms are already closed one day a month, and that has backed up cases and limited access to justice for small businesses, families and the public at large.
Over the next three years, as much as 30 percent of the Los Angeles Superior Court system could shut down unless the state’s funding priorities shift.
That’s the picture court employees and officials, law enforcement, family advocates and many judges have been painting for more than a year.
Now even the Judicial Council finally is saying what the rest of us have known. A report released March 30 by the state courts’ governing body said without immediate help the cuts to local courts will be “staggering.”
“Courts will require additional funding to be able to avoid significant reductions in operations, including potentially substantial staff reductions and furloughs over the next three years,” the report states.
Just last month, the cash-strapped Los Angeles Superior Court laid off 329 employees, cut document-processing services and shut down services for the public like the traffic-citation call center that assisted 2,000 people each month. Revenue generating services such as traffic and civil cases have been compromised. Justice is further delayed for families, crime victims and the 100,000 people who use Los Angeles courts every day.
Court employees and officials are asking the Judicial Council immediately to free up money, cancel this layoff and restore services to the public.
The most long overdue to-do item: immediately allocate funding for county courts, both in Los Angeles and across the state. The Judicial Council now says it should consider “all viable ongoing, limited-term and one-time funding solutions,” including transfers from construction funds that would not affect planned construction.
California needs to upgrade its aging court system for the safety of the public and the courts. But court leaders should balance that with the top priority of keeping courts open. That means moving forward on 41 priority projects already identified while funding court operations. Construction funding isn’t the only place the Judicial Council should look.
Court employees and this newspaper have asked hard questions about the bloated price tag of the estimated $1.7 billion California Case Management System. Defenders say it could save money in the long run. But costs have grown by 35 percent with no end in sight. We are not saying scrap the system, just delay it – and explain where the money will go.
We need a new era of transparency and accountability at the Administrative Office of the Courts in order to prevent this crisis from occurring again. The AOC’s own books and the budgets of local courts must be open to independent analysis. Investigations by the Daily Journal, the state Legislature and SEIU 721’s own Center for Public Accountability have revealed a pattern of misspending, lack of transparency and misplaced priorities.
Here are some examples:
The Center for Public Accountability revealed an internal audit of the CCMS project that called the system “high risk.” Yet the Judicial Council has pushed ahead with its project despite the worsening crisis in local courts, voting to spend $72 million last year from the Trial Court Trust Fund even as it closed courts to the public.
The AOC authorized $4.2 million in raises for top court executives despite a freeze on promotions, according to the Daily Journal.
The AOC has stonewalled a legislative committee’s request for information, and legislators are privately frustrated with the pace of reform. In February the Legislature ordered an independent audit of the AOC’s IT spending. According to the Recorder, AOC staff fought hard against that audit. “You’d think that would be a red flag,” said Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, who requested the independent review.
SEIU members have been asking for open books and budgets at the AOC since last May, when 200 court employees and the San Francisco City Attorney held up a giant magnifying glass outside AOC headquarters. But progress has been slow.
The simple truth of the matter is that the multi-billion-dollar court system is not held to the same standards as other state agencies whose mission is to protect the public.
That’s why SEIU members are supporting AB 2521, a bill that will require a truly independent look at both local courts’ and the AOC’s books.
If an independent source had been able to look at the Administrative Office of the Court’s books and assess the situation when Los Angeles courts sounded the alarm last year, we might have been able to prevent 329 layoffs and the court closures that are causing justice in Los Angeles to deteriorate today.
Our extraordinary economic times have brought union members and employers together across California. We have proposed creative solutions to make government more efficient and effective. We have set differences aside to work for what matters to the public.
Now’s the time for a better plan: Reallocate funds to court operations, recall the workers and restore the services Californians need. It’s not too late.