Gov. Jerry Brown's plan for funding court security could make it difficult to ensure that courts are sufficiently protected, according to the nonpartisan state Legislative Analyst's Office.
In the realignment proposal outlined in Brown's budget, counties would no longer provide security for trial courts through the sheriff's office and at a cost to the state. Instead, the county would provide the entire budget for court security at a guaranteed level of funding.
The proposal is part of Brown's plan to create $200 million in court savings and help close California's $25 billion budget gap. But in its generally optimistic overview of the governor's budget, the analyst's office described this structure as "problematic"
In our view, this approach does not make sense. While control of funding for court security would be shifted to counties, the state judicial system would continue to be responsible for the overall operation of the courts. Absent financial control, the courts would have difficulty ensuring that the sheriffs provided sufficient security measures.
In other words, "sheriffs would have a clear incentive to provide as little security as is allowable," Drew Soderborg, senior fiscal and policy analyst at the Legislative Analyst's Office, told California Watch.
Soderborg said the Brown administration has indicated that it plans to require sheriffs to provide a certain level of security. "But they haven't provided specific information about how this would be accomplished," he said. "It's not clear how it would be enforced."
Daisy Yee, a spokeswoman for the state Administrative Office of the Courts, said in an e-mail that the agency is waiting for further information from the governor and has yet to take a position on the topic.
In light of these issues, the Legislative Analyst's Office report proposes an alternative to the funding realignment:
We believe a better and more cost-effective approach would be to (1) clarify that the state is responsible for trial court security and (2) adopt a separate state law change authorizing the state to use competitive bidding by various private or public entities, including sheriffs, for the provision of these security services.
H.D. Palmer, deputy director of external affairs for the state Department of Finance, which operates as the governor's chief fiscal policy adviser, released this statement to California Watch:
While LAO proposes a law change to contract out for these services, our realignment proposal does not. Current law says two things: that sheriffs are to provide court security, but that the state has the fiscal responsibility for the trial courts. Our concept of realigning the funding for court security, we would argue, is an effort to make these two somewhat opposing laws work more efficiently. So while both we and the LAO are in agreement on the overall concept of realignment – as they say in the sub-head on Page 17 of their overview, 'Most of the Programs in the Administration’s Plan Make Sense' – we have a respectful disagreement with our colleagues on this particular portion of the governor’s proposal.
Comments
via Twitter