SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - California trial judges on a statewide budget committee fiercely oppose a move to strip their oversight power for trial court spending and give that power instead to another committee that regularly meets in secret.
This week, judges and court clerks on the Judicial Council's Trial Court Budget Advisory Committee took a strong stance against a proposed rule change that would give a different council committee the authority to go back and review how the council and its staff spent judiciary funds on behalf of the courts.
"I think this is a complete diminution of the authority of this committee," said budget committee member Judge Dodie Harman of San Luis Obispo. "This branch has a history of problems with credibility and transparency. I think we've worked on that, but this goes backwards. It reduces transparency."
Under the amended Rule 10.63, the council's Advisory Committee on Financial Accountability and Efficiency would audit the Judicial Council and its bureaucratic staff's past spending on anything related to the courts, from the judiciary's overall budget to sources like the Trial Court Trust Fund and Improvement and Modernization Fund, which finances court technology projects.
At a meeting on Tuesday, budget committee members said the rule change made no sense. They reasoned that if any committee should be looking at how the council spends money for the courts, it should be them.
"We have to have the ability to review the spending of staff. That's the very reason we're here," Harman said.
The budget committee meets frequently and always openly - in sharp contrast to the accountability committee, which meets only occasionally and usually in private.
"We already as a body meet pretty frequently; in fact we seem to meet a lot," Judge Cynthia Ming-mei Lee of San Francisco said. "In enlarging this charge to Accountability and Efficiency, it's simply really duplicating the efforts this committee is making and it also denigrates our authority. And there's a tension that will be created between this committee and A&E that will tend to muddy the waters. We need to have a clear line of decision-making."
The rule change comes in the wake of a scathing report by the California State Auditor, who in January published findings that the Judicial Council's staff, formerly called the Administrative Office of the Courts, spent $386 million over four years on statewide services that nearly half of California's 58 trial courts don't use - including $186 million on contractors and consultants.
While the proposal is a direct response to the audit, judges questioned whether it was what the auditor actually intended when she wrote, "The Judicial Council should create a separate advisory body, or amend a current committee's responsibilities and composition, to review the AOC's state operations and local assistance expenditures in detail to ensure that they are justified and prudent."
Judges on the budget committee said the move to give another, more secretive committee authority over spending review jeopardizes the credibility they had built over the years. The accountability and efficiency committee is headed by Justice Richard Huffman, a 14-year council member appointed by former Chief Justice Ronald George.
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