Legislators look to update court budget to reflect changes

California lawmakers are looking at how to update the court budget to reflect the significant changes the pandemic caused in how courts operate.

It quickly became clear Thursday at the first state Senate budget subcommittee hearing on the court's funding that the branch will get an unusual amount of scrutiny this year as legislators determine how to spend scarce money while addressing significant case backlogs.

Amid the gloom of budget cuts and trial court delays, there was good news at the hearing. Nancy Eberhardt, the court executive officer of San Bernardino County, presented data from a recent Judicial Council survey of the trial courts. She said the number of virtual hearings held by California courts has exploded. For instance, she said, Los Angeles County is conducting 5,000 virtual hearings a day from 600 web-enabled courtrooms. San Diego County is hosting 1,000 virtual hearings a day. Santa Clara County hosts all dependency hearings remotely.

"Many courts are sharing similar stories," Eberhardt said. "The Chief Justice's charge to search for 360 degree access opportunities is happening now."

But the pandemic has also created huge additional costs, she said. Some of these items are well known, such as physical barriers, personal protective equipment and additional cleaning. But Eberhardt said several large courts have reassigned staff to become full-time contact tracers.

"Adding health and safety measures comes at a huge monetary and resource allocation cost to the courts," Eberhardt said. "We have to divert funds from core operations. In my court, janitorial is an extra $35,000 a month. In LA, the cost has been over $5 million."

Legislative Analyst Gabriel Petek's office put a "hold open" recommendation on all seven courts budget items that came up. These included money for litigant self-help programs, reducing fines and fees on lower income people and funding courthouse construction.

The watchdog agency has endorsed a proposal laid out in Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposed budget that would merge the two major court construction funds, the State Court Facilities Construction Fund and Immediate and Critical Needs Account. According to numbers from the Legislative Analyst's Office, the former could run out of money later this year.

This is because of falling revenue from fines and fees. Anita Lee, the agency's principal fiscal and policy analyst, testified that about $175 million in General Fund money will be needed by 2024 to simply pay the debt service on current projects.

"At minimum, we are recommending the Legislature approve the consolidation of the two accounts because it does delay the need to address insolvency during the budget year," Lee said. "But it really makes no sense to maintain separate accounts when both are going to become insolvent anyway. ... We are recommending that both accounts be eliminated and full responsibility for court construction be shifted over to the General Fund."

Lee also urged lawmakers to take the crisis as an opportunity to look at court funding, and push back against the Newsom administration. For instance, she said, courts could look at how to spend money to address backlogs and equity issues at the same time.

"Before you, you really have the governor's priorities for trial court operations, which might not be the same as the Legislature's," Lee said. "We really encourage the Legislature to really make sure the trial court allocations really align with its priorities or the levels of services it desires."

The budget news is far better in 2021 than it was in 2020. About $200 million in cuts from the last budget are slated to be restored under Newsom's proposal. But as Lee and others have made clear, this money won't be enough to address the case backlog that has built up over the past year.

"The impacts of the pandemic are likely to impact service levels even beyond the budget year, despite efforts to minimize or mitigate them," Lee said.

Robert Oyung, the Judicial Council's chief operating officer, replied that Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye has mainly focused on restoring lost funding. But she wants to leave courts' discretion in how they spend money.

"The courts have really taken individual specific actions that have affected them locally," Oyung said. "There is not one particular area of priority. It's really up to each individual court."