Assembly OKs Plan for Court Funds

The Assembly approved a formula Monday for divvying up state and county costs to operate California’s trial courts--a move that supporters say would eliminate much of the chaos that has plagued the system.

A lopsided vote of 63 to 7 sent the bill (AB 233) by Assemblywoman Martha M. Escutia (D-Bell) to the state Senate, where it faces an uncertain future.

Senate Leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), who opposes some components of the measure, said trial court funding options should be made part of the negotiations over the 1997-98 state budget. Escutia said her measure should stand apart from negotiations over the often-delayed state budget so courts can be assured of timely state funding.

Under Escutia’s measure, courts would receive partial funding from state revenues totaling $237 million promptly on July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year.

Since 1992, when the state began drawing on funds from county property tax revenues, “it’s been unheard of for the state to help local governments,” Escutia said. “This helps address that.”

Assembly Minority Leader Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), a co-author of the Escutia measure, urged passage, saying that of the burdens on counties, court costs are “the fastest rising costs they face.” This is due largely to the processing of more criminal cases because of tougher anti-crime laws, he said.

The bill provides for a mix of funding sources, most based on present practices. But it would assign the state a somewhat higher share of court costs and would provide for a fixed formula.

To meet court costs running about $1.6 billion, the formula calls for committing state general fund revenues starting at $237 million and rising at about $20 million a year; would require counties to provide about $880 million; and would allow courts to keep more of the fees and fines they levy than they are allowed to keep now.

Currently, in a system described by all interested parties as unwieldy, the counties pick up about two-thirds of Superior and Municipal Court costs and the state about one-third. But lack of coordination often leaves the courts in a state of financial limbo, caught between unpredictable partial appropriations from Sacramento and difficult negotiations with their counties to make up the difference.

Last year, efforts to pass trial court funding legislation failed completely in the Legislature. As a result, until a hurry-up appropriation of $290 million in state funds last month, many of the state’s 1,500 sitting judges were on the verge of closing their courts.

Another possible hitch this year was a condition that Escutia said was emanating from the office of Gov. Pete Wilson, whose signature is necessary for the bill to become law.

As a condition of Wilson’s approval, Escutia said, his legislative liaison official has insisted on an amendment that would add 40 trial judges to the state’s court system.

A spokesman for Wilson said that he would be “more favorably inclined” toward the Escutia bill if the judges were included as they are in his proposed state budget.

Attached to Escutia’s bill was a companion measure that would allow court employees to bargain collectively with the judges in their courts for workplace benefits other than salary. That measure passed 41 to 27, mostly along partisan lines.

Last year, the bargaining issue was blamed for defeat of the trial court measure. This year, the issues of court funding and bargaining are again linked.

As drafted, the trial court funding bill can only be enacted if the benefits measure is also signed by the governor.