Cash-Strapped Courts Await Money Votes : Legal system: Passage of sales tax hike and an increase in state funding are desperately needed in wake of post-bankruptcy county budget slashing, officials say.

The county’s courts, already struggling with bankruptcy-related cutbacks and a burgeoning caseload, are bracing for two key funding decisions this month that could cause further strain.

The impact of the county’s bankruptcy already is being felt in many ways around its courthouses, where many petty crimes are no longer prosecuted, and the county’s top Superior Court judge vacuums his own courtroom because of janitorial cuts.

Judges and lawyers now wonder whether even more severe cuts will be made as they await the outcomes of a crucial battle in Sacramento over how much money local courts will get from the state, and the June 27 special election over a half-cent sales tax hike that proponents say is key to the county’s recovery from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Some fear that further funding losses would play havoc with recent efforts to speed up civil trials and family law cases.

“People in the legal community are concerned about what we’ve already seen in the curtailment of services, and what we might see,” said Michelle A. Reinglass, a Laguna Hills attorney who is co-chair of a statewide coalition of judges and lawyers. “This is not a boy-who-cried-wolf situation.”

The Orange County Bar Assn., which has not taken a formal position on the sales tax proposal known as Measure R, also has been sounding the alarm.

“Calendars are overcrowded, we don’t have enough judges and backlogs are building,” said Jennifer L. Keller, the association’s president-elect. “If Measure R fails to pass, the courts cannot absorb further cuts and continue to function properly. For the average citizen bringing a civil or family law case to the courthouse, the results would be disastrous. It might be years before the case could be resolved.”

Court administrators say they have not drawn up doomsday plans and are optimistic the state will increase court funding--as Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed--leaving less for the county to shoulder.

“Everybody’s mood is cautious. We’re all hopeful, yet we’re preparing,” said William Brennan, executive officer of Municipal Court in Fullerton, the county’s busiest municipal courthouse. “All of us are looking closely at what we can do, but none of the courts are extremely fat.”

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The proposed Wilson budget would fund about 70% of the state’s trial court costs for the fiscal year starting July 1 and return a greater share of court-collected fines and forfeitures. In exchange, counties would have to pick up higher welfare costs.

By contrast, the state covered only about 35% of court costs in the current fiscal year, leaving counties to pick up the rest of the tab.

Officials say Orange County stands to gain more than any other county from the governor’s proposal, which is under fire from other counties that would lose under the welfare exchange.

Court administrators in Orange County say the courts can avoid major cutbacks as long as the state covers at least 60% of the local court system’s projected $140-million budget next year.

The county, for its part, has pledged $33.8 million for court expenses and the county marshal’s office. The money for courts represents a drop of about $19 million from last year’s spending.

Officials said it is unclear precisely how the budget promise would be affected by a defeat of Measure R, which would raise the sales tax to 8.25% and generate an estimated $130 million annually over its 10-year life.

But any amount of state funding that falls below 60% of total costs will mean a shortfall--and prompt a new round of budget negotiations with the county, said Alan Slater, executive director of the Superior Court.

“You can squeeze a little here and there, but there’s not the kind of money to squeeze out of our system short of closing the doors,” Slater said. “We can’t conceive of that happening and by that time, we’d have a state constitutional issue.”

Superior Court Presiding Judge James L. Smith said constitutional mandates--such as a defendant’s right to speedy arraignment and trial--mean the courts must stay open, no matter how severe a cash shortage.

“We can’t simply abdicate our responsibilities and say, ‘Too bad, we’ll close courts for two days a week,’ ” Smith said.

Under state law, the courts can order county supervisors to provide “anything necessary to the court’s function.”

A state appellate court recently struck down Mendocino County’s attempt to close courtroom doors to save money. Courts there fought an order by supervisors in 1993 to close for six “furlough days.” The 1st District Court of Appeal ruled invalid the state law that had allowed the county to darken the courts.

But a legal faceoff between Orange County and local courts over funding is unlikely, said Ron T. Coley, public safety manager in the county administrative office.

“I do not expect that to happen. There’s just entirely too much goodwill between these two entities,” Coley said.

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The looming budget questions are only the latest worry for officials since the county fell into bankruptcy Dec. 6 after longtime Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron lost nearly $1.7 billion on risky financial maneuvers while managing a $7-billion investment pool. The county’s general operating budget has been slashed by 41%, hundreds of employees have been laid off and the county will auction off some its properties later this month.

The cuts have shown up in the courts in varied forms. In some Municipal Courts, for example, offenders are sweating off court fines by moving office furniture, vacuuming, painting and other tasks.

Last month, Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi said his cash-strapped office would no longer prosecute lesser misdemeanor offenses such as trespassing, disturbing the peace and driving without a license. Such cases will now be handled by the courts in the same manner as traffic tickets.

And the public defender’s office was split into three divisions to represent thousands of poor defendants whose cases previously had been assigned to private attorneys at a higher cost.

The cutbacks come as the courts are facing an increase in felony cases. Prosecutors filed 12,318 felony cases last year, a 4% increase over 1993, and the number is expected to go up further this year.

The number of felony jury trials also rose 49% last year, as defendants facing 25 years to life in prison under the state’s new “three strikes” law insist on trials rather than entering into plea agreements.

Administrators at these bustling courts are puzzling over how they will cope with even minor new cash shortfalls.

“We have to keep our doors open,” said Brennan of Municipal Court in Fullerton, which handles 200,000 new cases each year. “It’s a real dilemma. I don’t know how we’re going to handle it.”