(CN) - What started as a seemingly simple records request from a trial judge has exploded into a four-month battle over how much information the judiciary's bureaucratic arm should provide to trial judges who want to know how the agency spends public money.
As part of a long-running challenge to the size and spending of the Administrative Office of the Courts, Sacramento Judge Kevin McCormick wants a current list of the office's contracts with outside businesses, how much the contracts are worth and where the money is coming from.
The office's refusal to provide such a list, said the judge, "appears inconsistent with the concept of transparency."
The administrators have answered by saying that it is extra work to update the list of contracts. They said a rule that requires them to give access to administrative records, California Rule of Court 10.500, does not require them to do extra work to put information together.
The latest battle for information follows a series of actions by the administrative office working with the Judicial Council that have been criticized by legislators and newspapers for working against transparency in government.
They include a bill to impose a $10-per-file fee on the right to review court files, successfully opposed by California's newspapers and open government groups. Court administrators argued that it was too much work to bring files to the counter.
After rejecting the $10 fee, legislators then placed a condition in the budget that required the Judicial Council to open its committee meetings to the press and public. Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye lobbied against that requirement and Governor Jerry Brown struck it from the budget last month.
In another move, the Judicial Council passed efiling rules late last month that rode over opposition from the state's newspapers, including the L.A. Times, the Bay Area News Group and the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Written into the rules were comments that could be interpreted by local bureaucrats to delay access to new court filings until they are no longer news.
The current controversy over contracts stems from a history of wasteful spending by the administrative office, for example, spending a half-billion-dollars, primarily through contracts with private vendors, on a software system that was subsequently scrapped. Legislators and many trial judges reacted with an attempt to control spending by the bureaucracy and cut down its power.
In that long campaign, McCormick in 2011 asked for, and was provided, a list of the administrative office's open contracts with vendors. Earlier this year, he asked for an update of that list. And that is where the trouble began.
Intructions From the Council
In a lengthy explanation by email, Chad Finke, who directs court services for the administrative office, argued that the report McCormick wanted would require extra work to create a computerized report that his office did not normally use, and said he had been instructed by the the courts' rule-making body, the Judicial Council, to only provide reports kept "in the normal course of business."
He pointed to his initial 2011 exchange with McCormick in which he said the report was "created from scratch." But in that same exchange, he also said the Finance Department was able to create the report promptly.