SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Two of California's neediest trial courts petitioned the Judicial Council for emergency funds at its meeting Friday, but only one walked away with money.
While both Kings County and San Joaquin county courts are in dire fiscal straits, with negative fund balances of $2.2 million and $1.7 million respectively, the council voted to keep only Kings afloat until the end of the fiscal year with $94,000.
San Joaquin had initially asked for $2.2 million, or at the very least $442,000, the amount it had contributed to the judiciary's emergency reserve. Presiding Judge David Warner of San Joaquin County Superior Court pleaded vehemently for the funds, saying the court's understaffing issues have brought it to the brink of closing down its ability to handle a majority of the types of cases filed in the court.
"We're no longer able to do all the case types. Beginning September 1st in our county, if you file a small claims action, it's literally stuck in a box. And I get letters and calls from people saying, are you kidding me? Is this a joke? Are you doing some grandstanding here? And I tell them I have to have staff to process these cases," Warner said.
"And we stopped small claims. Here's the worst problem. That's not enough. Even where we're at right now, we're not getting the cases done. We're going to have to start to cut into other civil cases in order to balance that workload and the caseload that we have."
Warner attributed the court's financial crisis the way the courts are funded, a method he said has historically left San Joaquin as the most underfunded court in the state.
"I believe our county is a special situation brought about by historical, chronic, significant underfunding and a funding mechanism that this council controls, which has not been fixed, and that's led to the situation that we're in," Warner said, noting that if the court received only $442,000 of the $2.2 million it requested, it will definitely lay off another 22 staff and start closing more regional courthouses.
"We've already closed Tracy completely, Lodi is down to one court. We'll close it up and that will leave us with Manteca as an outlying branch," he said. "At that point we will not only stop doing small claims, we will stop doing civil. There will be no civil cases in San Joaquin County. You can file it, we'll stick it in a box, and good luck with that. That's where it will sit. I have to have the staff to move those cases along."
On the judiciary's need to overhaul its funding structure, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said a committee formed in conjunction with the governor's office will address the issue in the coming weeks.
"I think this is a critical piece that is significant to the trial court funding work group and the discussions to be had about the range of problems that the courts are facing," said the chief justice. Three of the council's judges are on that committee.
Judges on the council grilled Warner over what the court had been doing to cut costs since December 2011, when the council sent $2 million to the court -- a $1.08 million grant and a $916,000 loan. Warner replied that the court was currently working it way through a list of 59 recommendations that the a group of judges and court officials had given them, and is still holding $916,000.