Cheryl Miller

04-02-2009

SACRAMENTO - California's court leaders on Wednesday pleaded with lawmakers to spare the judicial system from the full brunt of $100 million in planned budget cuts and millions of dollars more in cost overruns.

"The effect of what's on the table now comes very close to shutting down major portions of the court system," William Vickrey, the Administrative Office of the Courts' administrative director, told a budget subcommittee. "We could literally find ourselves shutting the civil system down and still not come close to the entirety of the reductions."

Wednesday's hearing marked the first legislative review of the court's budget in the wake of Friday's news that the state will not receive the hoped-for $10 billion in general fund aid from the federal stimulus package. Without the $10 billion "trigger," the Legislature has agreed to levy an income tax surcharge and to make deep cuts in programs ranging from social services to court operations. California's courts lose $100 million under the plan, plus another $71 million that would have provided initial funding for another 100 judgeships.

The state pays about $2 billion a year from the general fund to operate the court system.

The judiciary's budget problem is compounded by higher-than-expected costs for employee retirement contributions, labor contracts, appointed counsel and court interpreters, Vickrey said. Combined with the $100 million reduction, cuts that the judiciary took last year, and the Legislature's elimination of the branch's annual inflation adjustor, the added costs could put the courts in the red by as much as $400 million, Vickrey said.

If the Legislature had known about those extra costs, he told the subcommittee, "I have to believe the decisions [about the $100 million cut] would be different …. My request would be that you try to work with us on the issues that were not known at the time the budget was passed."

The AOC hasn't announced how the budget cuts will be doled out. A long-planned case management computer system will probably have to be delayed again, Vickrey said. Security takes a big chunk of the courts' budget - about 20 percent - but cutbacks aren't popular and may not even be possible due to contracts with local sheriff's departments, he said.

"In the end, the biggest-ticket item in the courts' budgets is their employees," Vickrey warned.

Some courts are already feeling the pinch. Alameda County Superior Court workers have already been told that they will have to take two-week unpaid furloughs this year, said Francisco Martinez, a legal file processor with the court. Employees also are bracing for layoffs later this spring in the wake of an expected $13 million deficit, he said.

"Morale is real, real low," said Martinez. "It's going to be a rough job. Some people are going to have to be doing the jobs of two or three different people."

Vickrey said local courts may have to renegotiate labor contracts with employee unions and possibly resort to layoffs. Michelle Castro, a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union, estimated that 1,500 court workers could lose their jobs under the current scenario.

Representatives of court employees around the state warned lawmakers that firing workers would only make it tougher to handle growing caseloads fueled by housing disputes and families' money troubles. But legislators said they could offer little hope of a bailout with budget analysts predicting another multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall this summer.

"We'll certainly work with you to the extent that there are available resources to do so," said Assemblyman Juan Arambula, D-Fresno. "But if we're looking at another $14 billion shortfall without any additional revenues, there won't be any easy solutions."

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