Courts are being raided as part of the Governor’s proposed budget. He calls for a total reduction of $544 million in the courts’ budget.
While the courts system had managed to build a reserve in excess of $562 million, the cuts will have drastic impacts in the services provided to residents. In Sacramento County, between nine and 18 percent of the court’s employees will be laid off. That equates to 68 to 136 employees in the local system with about 680 employees. In the last year, the court system shrank from 740 employees to the current level.
One way that the cuts will impact people will be in small claims court. There a commission hears cases five days a week. That will be reduced to one day per week once the full weight of the cuts is in place. Another noticeable change will be the indefinite shelving of the new courthouse that was going to be built on the site of the downtown rail yards.
From the Sacramento Bee:
The Sacramento County court system looks like it’s about to lay off at least 9 percent of its employees – and maybe twice that figure – as a result of the latest state budget revision. “We’re going to have to have layoffs,” Sacramento Superior Court Presiding
Judge Laurie M. Earl said in an interview Wednesday, after digesting word of the $544 million reduction in state trial court funding announced Monday by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Read the full article here.