The Case of Courts vs. Budget

By SHELBY GRAD

April 11, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SANTA ANA —

It may look like a garden-variety dispute between bureaucrats battling over a larger slice of taxpayer pie.

But at stake is nothing less than the price and quality of justice.

The acrimonious collapse of negotiations this week over an $8.5-million emergency funding plan for Orange County’s courts raises the grim prospect that the system could run out of money in mid-May, bringing the wheels of justice to a slow but grinding halt.

Sharply curtailed, if not paralyzed altogether, would be the operations of criminal and civil courts that annually dispose of approximately 750,000 Orange County cases--more than 14,000 serious felonies, 60,000 lesser crimes, 11,000 divorces and 2,600 probate filings, in addition to thousands of civil disputes.

“This is deadly serious,” said Franz Miller, president of the Orange County Bar Assn. “You run the risk of not just affecting criminal cases, but domestic violence cases, child custody, everything. If we just stop, we would have chaos on many levels.”

Even under the worst imaginable scenario, legal experts and state judicial officials said, it remains highly unlikely that the court system would close down completely.

Rather, the courts would probably reduce operating hours, slash services, cut juror pay and limit the number of small-claims and civil cases that are heard.

Several smaller counties in California have already been forced to take such steps, creating or adding to existing civil case backlogs, but allowing the courts to hear criminal cases in a timely manner.

“It’s been ungodly around here,” said Adam Ayala, court administrator for Lake County, where staffing has been slashed 25% in the last year. “Under the law, we have to provide criminal defendants in custody with a trial within 60 days. It’s been touch-and-go, but we are doing it.”

Some Orange County judges agree that if they begin running out of money in coming weeks their first priority would be to maintain as best they could the current level of criminal proceedings. For now, the judges said, they are focusing less on contingency plans than on salvaging the compromise funding pact they thought they had with the county.

“I think the sides are close enough that we can come to some understanding and avert [a shutdown], if we have more talks,” said Pamela L. Iles, a judge in South County Municipal Court. “We are not focused on running out of money now, because we still feel we can avoid it.”

Supervisors Vow to Avoid Shutdown

The emergency funding plan that was yanked from the Board of Supervisors’ agenda Monday would have provided the courts with as much as $8 million to get through the current fiscal year ending June 30. Each side openly accused the other of trying to make last minute changes to the terms of the deal, which had been worked out in often rancorous negotiations over the past two months.

Despite the negotiating impasse, county officials have vowed to step in with additional funding when the courts are actually unable to pay salaries and overhead costs.

“The constitutional right to a speedy trial is undisputed, so obviously the courts aren’t going to close down,” Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner said earlier this week. “We are going to make sure the justice system doesn’t unravel.”

And the judges, who had been threatening to trigger a constitutional crisis of sorts by issuing a court order for the funds, have stopped rattling this legal saber, at least in public.

But even if a crisis is averted, legal experts said, such sparring and bargaining are no way for the courts to be spending their time.

Both state judicial officers and many county officials support bills now pending in the Legislature that would cap county contributions to court funding at 1995 levels, and make the state responsible for any increased funding requirements in the future.

Joseph Bell, chairman of the State Bar Assn. Board of Governors’ legislative committee, said the bill would end the annual clash between county and court administrators and “depoliticize” the funding process.

“The courts shouldn’t be wasting time on these deals. They should be handling cases and litigation,” Bell said. “It’s a drain on the energies of the judges to have to spend time politicking like this.”

The court funding crisis stems largely from moves by the Legislature in recent years to allocate less state money for court operations, and to shift more of the financial burden of running state courts to the counties.

Orange County is not the only county chafing under the revamped funding formulas, but because of the recent bankruptcy finds itself with less money to fill the growing funding gap. The courts practically ran out of money last year, but were bailed out by the state.

“The fact is that counties don’t have a great deal of discretionary funds,” said Rubin R. Lopez, legislative representative for the California State Assn. of Counties. “They can’t handle additional funding burdens.”

It’s a fact some courts in Northern California have already discovered.

The courts in 16 counties were in danger of running out of money in March, just before the Legislature agreed to allocate an additional $290 million, according to the Judicial Council of California.

“The courts literally had people driving to Sacramento to get the checks directly from the controller’s office so they could make payroll,” said Jerry Yalon, supervising analyst for the Judicial Council. “It was very close.”

In Lake County, budget cuts have forced judges to hear fewer traffic and small-claims cases, causing backlogs of small-claims and other civil cases to “grow by leaps and bounds,” said Ayala, the court administrator.

The public records counter, once open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., now closes at 12:30 p.m.

“We are struggling to make it work with fewer people,” Ayala said. “But it causes the stress level of the employees to go up, and you have to be more aware of errors because of that.”

Even a partial interruption in civil court services would have profound effects on the thousands of Orange County residents who rely on the justice system for divorces, to settle inheritance disputes in probate court, and to resolve business disputes.

In 1995, the courts handled 11,491 divorces, 2,600 probate cases, and more than 40,000 civil damage suits, as well as roughly 40,000 small claims disputes.

Orange County judges originally demanded $18.9 million to keep the courts operating through the end of June. Last month, they reduced the figure to $13.9 million.

But County Chief Executive Jan Mittermeier has consistently challenged the judges’ numbers, saying the courts needed, at most, an additional $2 million.

Clash Over Details Scotches Compromise

The compromise hammered out last week would have provided the courts with as much as $8.5 million--$4.2 million immediately to cover salaries, with another $4.3 million to be made available in case the courts could not cover other costs.

But negotiators for the courts and the county disagreed on whether the $4.3 million should cover only salaries, as county supervisors wanted, or salaries and other “court obligations,” as the judges sought.

State law requires counties to provide the courts with “suitable” facilities and “sufficient attendants, heat, light, furnishings, equipment, stationery, supplies and other personal property for courtrooms and chambers.”

The judges could issue a court order requiring the county to allocate the money they say they need, but that would almost certainly result in a lengthy legal battle over exactly what’s “suitable” and “sufficient.”

Iles and other judges pointed out that the issue goes beyond keeping courthouse doors open to whether the courts have enough money to operate effectively.

For more than a year, the courts have sought county funding for an expansion of an overcrowded jury assembly room and an airport-style security system at the Central Courthouse. The South County Municipal Court is also overcrowded, but no money is currently available for a relocation or expansion.

Court administrators have long complained that their funding has remained at austere bankruptcy levels while the district attorney’s office and Sheriff’s Department budgets have been increased substantially.

“They are not talking about putting in a pool or spa over there” in the courthouse, said the Bar Assn.’s Miller. “They are talking about basic security needs, and providing jurors a place to sit so they don’t have to stand up. It’s not asking too much.”

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Court Count

Orange County courts handled more than 720,000 cases in 1995, including nearly 130,000 criminal cases and many more civil matters:

1995 Cases*

Criminal: 18%

Divorce/family law: 1%

Civil: 81%

* Most recent available data

Source: Judicial Council of California

Researched by SHELBY GRAD / Los Angeles Times

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Judicial Review