Chief Justice Urges Stable Funding for State Courts

SACRAMENTO — Warning that a serious revenue shortage could soon close courts throughout California, Chief Justice Ronald George urged lawmakers this week to quickly approve stable funding for the state’s judicial system.

“The renewed threat of closed courts must not be taken lightly,” George told a joint session of the state Senate and Assembly on Tuesday. “It is a real and imminent threat to the fundamental functioning of government and thus to the well-being of the public we serve.

“Such a hand-to-mouth existence is no way to administer justice in our great state.”

George said in his State of the Judiciary speech that courts in as many as 51 of California’s 58 counties could be forced to close courtrooms by April unless lawmakers come up with additional funding.

“Over the years the bifurcated system that divides responsibility for court funding between the state and the counties has led to more and more problems, with the courts sometimes falling between the cracks,” George said.

“The budget process has become a full-time burden for the courts, which must deal with two separate, uncoordinated systems with neither having clear funding responsibility.”

He said legislation that was close to passage last year would have solved the problem by giving the state the main role in funding courts and requiring counties to pay for certain functions.

The measure failed in the last hours of the Legislature’s 1996 session because of a dispute between Gov. Pete Wilson and Senate leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) over whether court employees should have the right to negotiate with court administrators over noneconomic, work-related issues.

George said in October in a speech to the State Bar that failure of that bill left courts facing a $400-million funding shortfall.