SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Faced with budget cuts that have forced the closure of one courthouse, Ventura County Superior Court is turning the clock back and going to the county government for money. The move runs counter to a long campaign, started by former Chief Justice Ron George, to push California's trial courts into a single system funded by the state and under the control of a central bureaucracy.
"If the state is not going to help us, we have to think of a creative solution," said Dien Le, president of Ventura's bar association.
"At least temporarily it looks like it would be a good way to go," said Presiding Judge Vincent O'Neill. "We're looking at it as a two-year, almost-grant project."
In the neighboring giant of Los Angeles County, Judge Robert Dukes said, "I think it's fascinating after this state trial court funding fiasco we now see where the downfall of that is. They're going to go back to county funding because the counties are not in the same dire shape. If what Ventura is doing is working, others may start doing the same."
Such a trend would reverse the long campaign to exert central control over the local courts, orchestated by the former chief justice in 1997, through legislation that moved the source of court funds to the state Legislature and away from the counties where it had been historically. At the same time, George began expanding the bureaucratic arm of the courts by leaps and bounds until it had more than tripled in size.
But that train has ground to a halt.
In its budget bill, the Legislature made sure the money it allocated for the local courts could not be siphoned off by the bureacracy and it has pushed that bureaucracy, the Administrative Office of the Courts, to cut its workforce. A recent and scathing report by a evaluation committee of judges recommended the office reduce its size by roughly one third.
In contrast to the initiative taken in Ventura, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, said recently that she does not support a return to local funding for the courts. She took over from George a little less than two years ago.
In a teleconference last week, one reporter asked the chief justice whether courts are better off going back to county funding.
"Absolutely not," she replied. "Trial court funding was a genius act by chief justice Ron George."
She noted that it is up to each court's presiding judge and executive board to decide how best to handle the budget crisis. "Every court has an elected presiding judge and a team of judges who advise the presiding judges on how to move forward."
"Our courts are comprised of very smart people," she added. "It's a matter of how each court can absorb this. I don't have a one size fits all answer except it is probably not a solution that gets to be made by one person," she said.
Le with the Ventura bar said he had no problem with uniformity for the courts, as it pertains to rules and websites, but it is a different matter when it comes to money.
"If they want to make everything uniform and controlled by Sacramento, that's their problem," said Le. "We're all for uniformity, but if they're not going to give us the budget, we have to help ourselves."
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