Court Funding Task Force

January 16, 2003

Present: Wayne Blair, John Cary, Ann Schindler, Cheryl Bleakney, Jan Michels, Kirk Johns, Steve Dwyer, Tom Warren Ron Hjorth, Deborah Fleck, Ron Ward, Mary Mcqueen, Janet McLane, Ramsey Radwan, Doug Haake, Gil Austin, Wendy Ferrell, Jeff Hall

General Discussion Points:

• Importance of defining the “problem” and determining what is included for study (e.g. civil legal services, prosecution, law libraries, indigent defense), and what lies outside the scope of problem identification – it was agreed the Problem Identification Work Group should begin work immediately and inform the other Work Group of its progress as soon as possible
• The timeline is extremely aggressive and will likely need to be modified once we know more about the work involved.
• Work groups should target a maximum of 17-20 members. Chairs are reminded that individuals with particular experience or points of view can be invited to make presentations at work group meeting, rather than participate as appointed members.
• Some issues or problems may overlap workgroups. It is expected that meeting notes will be promptly posted on the web site and that AOC staff will coordinate to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. Work groups are encouraged to hold joint meetings to accommodate presenters and discussion about mutual topics of interest.
• IMMEDIATE TASK…is to identify remaining work group members and get them on-board so that a first meeting of each work group can be set in February. Appointment letters will be prepared by AOC for Wayne’s signature with a copy to co-chairs.

Work Group Plans:

Problem Identification (Jan Michels, Jeff Amram – Co-chairs)

Adequately funded courts preserve public safety, enhance equal justice, and maintain the rule of law. When inadequate funding exists, courts chase the dollars.

Work Plan: (not necessarily in order)

1. Identify the core mission (functions) of trial courts - use the JEA Core Mission Subcommittee report as a starting point.
2. Place all functions of the courts into three circles: core, supporting, and ancillary. For example, supporting functions might be: probation, CASA, facilitators, dv advocates, family court services, collections, warrants, arbitration, mediation. Ancillary functions might be facilities, detention, law library.
3. Attach costs or cost percentages to each of the functions.
4. Draft a white paper regarding the state's interest in the justice system, i.e., the state controls the workload, the jurisdiction and sets the salaries for the judges.
5. Look at expenditures per person by county and per case by county.

The core costs as identified in 1997 were: judges' salaries, interpreter costs, jury costs, witness costs, and public defense costs. The work group should look at civil legal needs costs also.

Item 3 of the work plan would be accomplished by gathering a group of court managers from both levels of trial court in a focus group type setting.

Possible presentations to the work group:

These groups would be asked to present the problems faced by their constituency groups relative to funding: Access to Justice, Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. The work group would also like to hear from Yolande Williams, Seattle Municipal Court administrator, about her experience with the California trial court funding project.

Courts of Limited Jurisdiction – Delivery of Services (Judge Ann Schindler, Ron Ward – Co-chairs)

The Work Group will focus on whether public policy is currently uniformly administered and the most effective structure for delivering services. The work group will determine where there are gaps in public access or service, and further decide whether these gaps can be addressed by additional funding or other changes. Toward this objective, various customers of CLJ courts should be involved in the discussion (domestic violence petitioners; the Bar, law enforcement, etc.) Another important perspective will be the views of city and county legislative officials and executives. What do they see as the most important considerations in deciding how court services will be provided to their community? Given the potential breadth of the charge and the complexity of issues, some prioritization of the most important concerns or issues will probably be necessary.

Resources to gather immediately include:

• Project 2001 reports on court consolidation and jurisdiction
• Courts of Limited Jurisdiction Assessment Survey (“Wilson Report”)
• Statewide profile of contracting/independent courts – and relevant statutory authorities
• White paper by Judge Bob McSeveney – “Interlocal Agreement for Municipal Court Services”
• Various caseload comparisons of district and municipal courts

Funding Alternatives (Ron Hjorth, Kirk Johns – Co-chairs)

One of the first “challenges” of the Work Group is to understand the different definitions as to what constitutes the problem of court funding and work from the definition of the problem as set out by the Problem Identification Work Group.

Other efforts will be undertaken to synthesize the points of Judge Godfrey’s paper on the history of court funding and the several series of recommendations from the various work groups that have dealt with court organization.

The final effort will be to determine what should be the general mechanism for funding the courts and what the “delivery systems” are for revenue that are generated.

Materials that are needed for part of this analysis is information on use of judgment fees, perhaps from the National Center for State Courts; filing fee studies; any fees on ADR providers imposed by states and the information on core missions of the courts.

Work group membership should be enhanced by seeking judges for CLJs, either from eastern Washington or rural counties; court administrators and additional members of the Bar, outside King County , who can be recommended by judges as having a particular interest in court funding issues.

Implementation Strategies (Judges Fleck, Dwyer, and John Cary – Co-chairs)

The group discussed a number of issues including which associations should be represented and which individual representatives would be good to have on the committee or at least be willing to help carry the message. We also discussed the fact that we should not wait until alternatives were developed. Accordingly, it was decided that the workgroup would develop implementation “outlines” for 3-4 generic funding alternatives (increased fees, increased taxes, etc.). This approach will ensure that “downtime” is minimized and that strategic relationships will be in place when the alternatives are approved.

Public Education (Judge Tom Warren, Cheryl Bleakney – Co-chairs)

A consensus was reached that a major emphasis of the early work of our group would be educating the major constituencies of the Court system about the progress of the task force and the nature of the recommendations as they were being developed. It was decided that the task of this group is technical in nature and that work group members, preferably, should have some experience in public outreach, media relations, public relations, or expertise in contact and persuasion of state leaders and opinion makers. As a result the staff was given the following tasks:

• Identify listservs, newsletters, and newsletter editors of the major constituents. The constituents are preliminarily identified as the: District and Municipal Court Judges Association, District and Municipal Court Management Association, Washington State Association of County Clerks, Superior Court Judges Association, Washington State Juvenile Court Administrators Association, Washington State Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, Washington State Bar Association, Washington State Association of Counties, Association of Washington Cities, Association of Washington Superior Court Administrators, Court of Appeals (listserv), Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Washington Defense Trial Lawyers.
• Follow up on the remaining appointments to the work group from the Clerks and Managers Associations. Request an appointment from the Superior Court Judges Association.
• Identify an early February date for the full work group meeting at Two Union Square in Seattle and reserve a conference room.

Based on a review of the work group charge the following were identified as the program of work of the group:

• Encourage all Task Force members, Work Group chairs, and other participants, to remember that all requests from the media for comment on the work of the Task Force shall be routed through Wendy Ferrell, the AOC public information officer, for referral to the appropriate person for response, statement or interview. We wish to speak, especially early on, with a united voice. This work group is here to help the other work groups and the Task Force, as well as disseminate and promote the recommendations of the Task Force.
• By the use of listserv’s, e-mail newsletters, and information reports we wish to keep all of our natural allies and court constituents fully informed of Task Force activity, hearings, meetings and the opportunity for input. To this extent a constituent outreach data base will be constructed. Hopefully information can be sent to these outreach entities at least monthly, if not more often.
• The public education effort of this work group will begin when significant events have occurred with the task force or work groups. We would then begin public media releases and contact with appropriate print or broadcast media contacts.
• Develop an implementation system for dissemination, approval and adoption of the Task Force final recommendations. This shall include a data sheet from all Task Force and work group members with their contacts and associations which they have influence with, and will be able to contact once the recommendations are made. We would be requesting each person provide three groups and/or associations with which they have influence.

These tasks are to be presented to the full work group at its first meeting for consideration and amplification.