L.A. Court Managers Get Raises Behind Closed Doors

By JEAN GUCCIONE and ANN W. O’NEILL

May 23, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Los Angeles County Superior Court leaders went behind closed doors last month to give 46 high-ranking managers pay raises that averaged 13%--many of them in the range of $10,000 to $25,000 a year.

The nearly half-million dollars in pay hikes was the first move by a merged trial court that, after years of begging for funds from the county Board of Supervisors, now controls its own purse strings.

The raises and the secretive process by which they were granted were largely an unknown consequence of the shift in fiscal control over the courts in all 58 California counties.

That shift--under the 2-year-old Trial Court Funding Law--has taken the job of paying for the courts away from county governments and delivered it to the Judicial Council of California. The relatively obscure agency meets in San Francisco, making local public review difficult.

Meanwhile, a state constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1998 has led to the merger of municipal and superior trial courts throughout the state. When lawmakers pushed for the amendment, they said it would produce huge savings--as much as $23 million a year statewide--by thinning the ranks of highly paid court administrators and making the judicial system run more efficiently.

Los Angeles court officials say they have cut at least five administrative positions, saving close to $700,000.

However, interviews and documents show that judges turned around and spent two-thirds of that money--$493,016--on raises for their top-level staffers. The raises went into effect April 15.

In the most extreme case, they approved a 37% increase for the court’s public information officer.

“That’s just unbelievable,” said Karleen George, organizing director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union that represents rank-and-file court staffers and begins contract negotiations next month.

Judge Victor E. Chavez, who presides over a sprawling court system that stretches from Lancaster to Long Beach, said the raises were needed to boost morale and keep salaries competitive after a decade of county budget slashing.

“If you think it’s a mystery, we have nothing to hide. I’m proud of it, in fact,” said Chavez, who oversees the 428-judge Superior Court, the largest local court system in the country.

Public Review Occurs Far From L.A.

The pay raises are linked to a massive administrative reorganization undertaken since January, when the county’s 24 municipal courts were merged into the Superior Court system. The Los Angeles judges were among the last to approve a merger, which has taken place in all but three counties.

Under the old system, annual budget hearings before the county Board of Supervisors aired local court funding issues publicly.

Now, however, public review of court funding is limited to legislative hearings in Sacramento, where lawmakers deliberate over the judiciary’s statewide budget, and to the Judicial Council in San Francisco, where each county’s court budget is set according to categories such as personnel and security costs.

After the money arrives in the county courts, local judges and court administrators have wide discretion over it. In other California counties, jurists have used their savings from the mergers to give employees raises and pay for extra courthouse security, state officials said Monday.

In Los Angeles County, a 22-member executive committee of judges now decides how to allocate a $500-million annual budget.

And those decisions can be made behind closed doors.

Chavez said that after the courts were merged in January, he appointed a seven-judge committee to review the salaries of the executive staff. The panel, known as the ad hoc committee on parity, drafted a set of six recommendations that set new salaries for a variety of high-level executives without identifying all the affected positions or how much these managers were making before the raises.

Documents and interviews show that the executive committee of judges quietly awarded the raises last month, when the committee approved a “Pay Parity Report.” The report was handed out in envelopes marked “Confidential.”

When The Times inquired what had happened during the April 12 committee meeting, court spokeswoman Jerrianne Hayslett said, “It’s not official yet. It’s confidential.”

Asked who might be available to discuss the committee’s deliberations, Hayslett said: “There’s no one.”

However, The Times later obtained a list of the approved raises, which went into effect three days after the committee vote.

The biggest beneficiary: Hayslett herself, whose salary was bumped up 37%--from $67,860 to $92,856. A former journalist who joined the Superior Court nearly nine years ago, Hayslett arranges media coverage of high-profile trials, writes and distributes news releases and fields inquiries from news outlets.

She was among 22 district administrators and executive staff members whose salaries were increased to $92,856. That compares with annual salaries of $117,912 for the judges they serve.

In all, documents show, four administrators received raises of more than $20,000 and 17 others received hikes of $10,000 or more. A few got raises of as little as 1%, or around $700.

The court’s executive officer, John A. Clarke, is paid $148,500; he did not receive a raise.

In an interview last week, Los Angeles court officials defended the raises. Chavez and other court officials said the extra money was justified because the merger increased administrators’ workloads and responsibilities.

They also said the merger created pay inequities in which supervisors were making less money than the employees under them. For instance, the top administrator in the South Bay courthouse was paid $105,114 and reported to a district administrator who was paid $71,064 before the raises.

And Hayslett defended her salary as being in line with what other members of the court’s executive team receive.

“My starting pay was so much lower,” said Hayslett, explaining why her salary went up 37%.

She said her workload and responsibilities have “more than doubled” with the court merger. She says she is one of three court officials authorized to speak for the court. As a result, all 428 judges and 5,000 employees have been instructed to route media inquiries through her.

The committee’s decision also set the pay at $80,351 for each of 24 trial court administrators--whether the person is running a one-judge court in Santa Anita or the 42-judge court in Van Nuys. This compares with a statewide average of $68,784 for similar positions, according to Judicial Council statistics for 1999.

Most of the 24 Los Angeles trial court administrators formerly ran smaller municipal courts, where their salaries ranged from $62,439 in San Fernando to $105,114 in Torrance. Those with salaries higher than the new $80,351 level were allowed to keep them because state law forbids any pay reductions during court mergers.

At least two former Los Angeles Municipal Court employees were passed over for salary increases, although their supervisory duties increased with the merger. They are still being paid less than another manager in the same job category.

Asked about the apparent secrecy of the court’s action, Chavez said that every judge had been given a copy of the executive committee’s minutes. But sources say the minutes simply reflected that the pay-parity report had been approved; no details were provided.

At least two judges who voted on the report’s recommendations acknowledged that they knew they were granting raises but were surprised to learn how large some of those increases were.

“It’s not like we got a list of the people who got raises,” said one jurist, who asked not to be identified.

Half a dozen judges who were not on the committee said they knew nothing about the raises.

Chavez said judges are not required--and have no plans--to open their executive committee meetings to the public. The judiciary is exempt from the state’s open meeting laws.

These murky circumstances, largely unforeseen under the new court funding system, have raised concerns among some lawmakers, who are now considering new guidelines to force local courts to make public more budget details.

Shedding Light on Spending Decisions

Currently, there are two bills in the Legislature that would require local judges to be forthcoming with information on how they spend their state money.

The bills, pending in the Assembly, are backed by labor unions and would force the state Judicial Council to provide “reasonable public access” to budget and expenditure information at the state and local levels.

“This legislation brings sunshine to the court’s budget process,” said Assembly member Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa), who wrote one of the bills.

This summer, the Judicial Council will consider a rule to force local courts to make their budgets available to the public. The 21-member council, led by California Chief Justice Ronald M. George, sets statewide policy for courts and negotiates with the Legislature over court funding.

“This was done, in part, in response to the concerns of the unions about whether people are cooperating and giving them information,” said William C. Vickrey, executive director of the state Administrative Office of the Courts.

Subjecting themselves to public scrutiny won’t come naturally to the judges, but they must eventually accept it, said McGeorge School of Law professor J. Clark Kelso, who has advised the state on court consolidation issues.

“It will be a culture change for them,” Kelso said. “But it might be healthy. . . . There is no particularly compelling reason why that [court budgeting] should be done behind closed doors.”

The issue has largely escaped wider public attention as well, in part because local courts don’t have the built-in constituency that city councils, boards of supervisors and school boards have in dealing with other government bodies, said Terry Francke, general counsel for the First Amendment Coalition.

“Why should it be a private reserve?” Francke said. “I don’t know, but it’s always been this way.”

Some critics say the raises illustrate how easily the courts can implement controversial decisions that might not survive public scrutiny.

“I certainly believe if there was any scrutiny, where an agenda had to be posted, they wouldn’t even begin to do some of the stuff they do,” said George, organizing director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

News of the pay raises comes just as the court prepares to negotiate with unions over the salaries of all court employees. Bart Diener, of the Service Employees International Union’s Local 660, says three-quarters of the court clerks make $32,000 or less, with top salaries for judicial assistants at $49,154.

“It would be difficult to argue they don’t have the money,” Diener said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Raises All Around

Following are the 10 largest pay raises awarded in April by Los Angeles Superior Court judges to their administrators. In all, 46 high-ranking administrators received salary hikes ranging from $700 to $25,000 a year.

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Previous Salary % Position salary with raise increase Public information officer Jerrianne Hayslett $67,800 $92,856 37% Southwest District administrator (Torrance) Darrell Mahood $71,064 $92,856 31% Southeast District administrator (Norwalk) Cary Ulwelling $71,112 $92,856 31% East District administrator (Pomona) Deni Butler $72,228 $92,856 29% Northwest District administrator (Van Nuys) Sandy Lacey $72,888 $92,856 27% North Valley District administrator (San Fernando) Terry Wilson $74,448 $92,856 25% South Central District administrator (Compton) Steve Forrest $75,528 $92,856 23% West District administrator (Santa Monica) Zoe Venhuizen $76,488 $92,856 21% Executive staff education director Brian Borys $74,748 $89,694 20% Alternate dispute resolution administrator Julie Bronson $62,376 $74,745 20%

*--*

Deciding Judges

Here are the Superior Court judges on the executive committee, which is the policymaking arm for the local courts that voted unanimously to give raises to the administrators:

Victor E. Chavez, chair

James A. Bascue, vice chair

Judith M. Ashmann

Jacqueline Connor

Haley J. Fromholz

Lance Ito

Jon M. Mayeda

S. James Otero

John W. Ouderkirk

Robert Martinez

Richard E. Spann

Rand S. Rubin