'Sobering' Cuts to State Budget Eliminate $2B for Court Construction
"The judicial branch is prepared to work with the Governor and the Legislature as we all try to maintain services for the public we serve," Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said.
May 14, 2020 at 05:53 PM
3 minute read
California's courts will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding under a revised, pandemic-ravaged state budget proposal unveiled Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The document, which cuts revenue projections by 22.3% from Newsom's much rosier January plan, eliminates an extra $107.6 million included for trial courts at the start of the year as well as $43.6 million to begin design and construction work on already approved courthouse projects.
Also gone is $2 billion Newsom's administration had allocated to build and rehabilitate 25 courthouses over five years.
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye called the proposed cuts "sobering."
"The judicial branch is prepared to work with the Governor and the Legislature as we all try to maintain services for the public we serve," Cantil-Sakauye said in a statement. "My hope is that the financial burden of a deficit will be shared fairly by all sectors of government. No one wants to turn away those coming to our courts to seek justice."
The cuts are no surprise given the state's widespread shutdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Newsom said at a press conference Thursday that he expects the state's unemployment rate to peak at just under 25% this year.
Administrative Director Martin Hoshino said earlier this month that trial court judges and court executive officers had been warned about impending cuts that could rival those made during the Great Recession.
Among the other cuts proposed in Newsom's budget:
>> $206 million from trial courts and $33.8 million from appellate courts and the Judicial Council through mid-2022.
>> 5% cuts to dependency counsel, court interpreters, collaborative and drug court projects, equal access funds, the Court Appointed Special Advocate Program and other specialized projects.
>> $10.3 million for tech upgrades, $6.9 million for digitizing documents and $1.2 million for appointed appellate counsel.
>> $23.4 million over two fiscal years to pay for the chief justice's court navigator program to help unrepresented litigants through the court process.
>> The revised budget does offer some help for the judicial branch. It will provide $315 million over two years to backfill plummeting revenues generated by declining fines and fees. There's also $50 million for trial courts to deal with the cases that bottled up during COVID-19 closures and $25 million to "modernize" court operations. That money could be used for such things as setting up video conferencing and electronic case filing, the proposal said.
Newsom's proposal will be vetted in the coming weeks by the Legislature, whose analyst has projected smaller deficits than the governor.
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