SB 75 — Courts.

Summary

(1) Existing law requires the small claims court to charge and collect a fee of $10 from the plaintiff for each defendant on whom the court clerk serves a copy of the plaintiff's claim by mail. This bill would increase that fee to $15 for each defendant to whom a copy of the claim is mailed by the small claims court clerk. (2) Existing law requires the Controller, to the extent feasible, to offset any amount overdue and unpaid for a fine, penalty, assessment, bail, vehicle parking penalty, or court-ordered reimbursement for court-related services, from a person or entity, against any amount owing the person or entity by a state agency on a claim for a refund from the Franchise Tax Board under the Personal Income Tax Law or the Bank and Corporation Tax Law, from winnings in the California State Lottery, or from a cash payment of a claim for unclaimed property held by the state, as specified. Existing law requires the Controller to deduct and retain from any amount offset in favor of a city or county an amount sufficient to reimburse the administrative costs of processing the offset payment. This bill would prohibit the Controller and the Franchise Tax Board from conditioning a request for offset on the submission of a person's social security number. The bill would additionally require the Controller to deduct and retain from any amount offset in favor of a court an amount sufficient to reimburse the administrative costs of processing the offset payment. The bill would authorize the Franchise Tax Board, if necessary to confirm the identity of a person before making an offset, and upon paying any necessary fees, to obtain a social security number from the Department of Motor Vehicles, as specified. (3) Existing law requires the Legislature to make an annual appropriation to the Judicial Council for the general operations of the trial courts based on the request of the Judicial Council, which is submitted to the Governor and the Legislature. Existing law requires the Judicial Council to retain the ultimate responsibility to adopt a budget and allocate funding for the trial courts. Existing law requires the Judicial Council to set a preliminary allocation for each trial court in July of each fiscal year and to finalize those allocations in January, as specified. Existing law, until June 30, 2014, authorizes a trial court to carry unexpended funds over from one fiscal year to the next. Existing law, commencing June 30, 2014, authorizes a trial court to carry over unexpended funds in an amount not to exceed 1% of the court's operating budget from the prior fiscal year. This bill would require the Judicial Council to include an estimate of the available trial court reserves as of June 30 of the prior fiscal year when setting its July preliminary allocation and to offset each court's allocation by the amount of reserves in excess of the amount authorized to be carried over, as specified. The bill would similarly require the Judicial Council to finalize its January allocations after review of available trial court reserves as of June 30 of the prior fiscal year and to offset each court's allocation as described above. The bill would exempt certain funds from the calculation of the 1% authorized to be carried over from the prior fiscal year. (4) Existing law establishes the Trial Court Trust Fund to fund trial court operations, as specified. This bill would authorize the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) to make loans to the Trial Court Trust Fund from specified funds if the cash balance of the Trial Court Trust Fund is insufficient to support trial court operations during the fiscal year, but would prohibit the total amount of outstanding loans from exceeding $150,000,000, as specified. The bill would prohibit AOC from authorizing a loan pursuant to these provisions to provide cash resources to any court that has not first provided a balanced budget approved by the Judicial Council. The bill would also authorize the AOC to transfer funds from the Trial Court Trust Fund for the repayment of these loans and would prohibit the charge or payment of interest, as specified. The bill would require that all loans made pursuant to these provisions be repaid within 2 years, as provided. (5) Existing law requires, for each proceeding lasting less than one hour, a fee of $30 to be charged for the reasonable cost of the services of an official court reporter. This bill would require the proceeds of the fee to be distributed to the court in which the fee was collected. (6) Existing law, until January 1, 2017, requires each trial court, prior to adopting a baseline budget plan for the fiscal year, to provide the public notice of, and an opportunity for input on, through submission of written documents or a public hearing, the trial court's proposed budget plan, and requires the baseline budget plan to be made available to the public at the courthouse and on the court's public Internet Web site no less than 3 court days prior to the hearing or, if there is no hearing, prior to adoption of the plan. This bill would extend the operation of these provisions indefinitely. (7) Existing law provides the fee for an exemplification of a record is $20, in addition to other charges allowed. This bill would increase the fee to $50 for an exemplification, in addition to other charges allowed. (8) Existing law provides that a person released from prison after serving a term for certain crimes is subject to parole supervision, as specified, and the jurisdiction of the court where the person is released or resides for the purpose of hearing petitions to revoke parole and impose a term of custody. This bill would expand those provisions to provide that jurisdiction for that purpose also includes the jurisdiction of the court in any county where the supervised person is arrested. The bill would make additional conforming changes relating to persons subject to mandatory supervision and postrelease community supervision, as specified. (9) Existing law, the California Community Corrections Performance Incentives Act of 2009, authorizes each county to establish a Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund, and authorizes the state to annually allocate moneys into a State Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund to be used for specified purposes relating to improving local probation supervision practices and capacities, as specified. The act defines "community corrections" for these purposes to mean the placement of persons convicted of a felony offense under probation supervision, with conditions imposed by a court for a specified period. This bill would expand those provisions to additionally include within "community corrections" the placement of persons convicted of a felony offense under mandatory supervision or postrelease community supervision, as specified. The bill would make additional conforming changes. (10) Existing law, until January 1, 2015, requires the Administrative Office of the Courts, in consultation with the Chief Probation Officers of California, to specify and define minimum required outcome-based measures, which shall include, among other things, the percentage of persons on felony probation who are being supervised in accordance with evidence-based practices. Existing law requires the Administrative Office of the Courts, in consultation with the Chief Probation Officer of each county and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, to provide a quarterly statistical report to the Department of Finance, including statistical information pertaining to felons and persons on felony probation for each county. This bill would expand these provisions to include persons who were placed on mandatory supervision and postrelease community supervision on and after January 1, 2012, as specified. The bill would extend the operation of the provisions described in this paragraph indefinitely. (11) Existing law requires the AOC, in consultation with the Chief Probation Officers of California, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and the Department of Finance, to submit a report to the Governor and the Legislature pertaining to community corrections programs for felony probationers, as specified. This bill would expand these provisions to include data regarding persons who were placed on mandatory supervision and postrelease community supervision. (12) Existing law provides for a probation failure reduction incentive payment for each eligible county, and establishes 2 tiers for evaluating counties for purposes of calculating that payment. Existing law also provides high performance grants to county probation departments for purposes of bolstering practices to reduce recidivism. This bill would establish a 3rd tier for the purposes of calculating a probation failure reduction incentive payment. The bill would provide that a county that fails to submit specified required information to the AOC would not be eligible for the incentive payment or the grant, as specified. The bill would modify the funding and calculation of the incentive payments and grants. The bill would appropriate $1,000,000 from the State Community Corrections Performance Incentive Fund to the judicial branch for the costs of implementing and administering the probation failure reduction incentive payment, as specified. (13) Existing law, until January 1, 2015, requires after the conclusion of each calendar year, the Director of Finance, in consultation with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the Chief Probation Officers of California, and the AOC, to calculate the probation failure rate for counties and for the state, as specified. This bill would additionally require calculation of mandatory supervision failure to prison rates and postrelease community supervision to failure to prison rates, for counties and for the state, as specified. The bill would extend the operation of these provisions indefinitely. (14) Existing law, commencing not earlier than July 1, 2011, and not later than December 15, 2012, requires the California State Auditor to establish a pilot program to audit 6 trial courts, as provided, and to commence an audit of the trial courts on or before December 15, 2013. It also requires, not later than December 15, 2013, and biennially thereafter, an audit of the AOC, the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, and the appellate courts. This bill would instead require the audit of the AOC, the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, the California Supreme Court, and the appellate courts to commence on or before July 1, 2013, and a copy of the final audit report of the AOC to be provided to specified entities on or before December 31, 2013. The bill would, on January 1, 2014, repeal these provisions, and would instead require the California State Auditor to biennially audit 5 judicial branch entities and the AOC, as specified, subject to an appropriation for this purpose, and to provide a final audit report to the judicial branch entity, the Legislature, the Judicial Council, and the Department of Finance, as provided. (15) Existing law authorizes the board of supervisors to designate a county financial evaluation officer to make financial evaluations of liability for reimbursement of the costs of support of a minor, as specified, and authorizes that officer to petition the court for an order requiring the person who is determined to be financially responsible to pay those costs. Under existing law, if the parent or guardian is currently receiving reunification services, and the court finds that repayment by the parent or guardian will pose a barrier to reunification with the child, as specified, the court shall not order repayment of those costs by the parent or guardian. This bill would prohibit the county financial officer from petitioning the court for an order of repayment of those costs, and the court from ordering that repayment, based upon either the finding of the court or the determination of the county financial officer, that repayment by the parent or guardian will pose a barrier to reunification with the child, as specified. (16) This bill would also require the Judicial Council to report to the appropriate budget and policy committees of the Legislature, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the Legislative Analyst's Office, and the Department of Finance, on or before June 30, 2014, on an evaluation of the Long Beach court building performance-based infrastructure project, as specified. (17) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill.

Bill Text

• Chaptered 06/27/13 - Chaptered Current pdf June 27, 2013
• Enrolled 06/14/13 - Enrolled pdf June 14, 2013
• Amended 06/12/13 - Amended Assembly pdf June 12, 2013
• Introduced 01/10/13 - Introduced pdf January 10, 2013
• SB75 View text html

Action History

1. June 27, 2013

   Chaptered by Secretary of State. Chapter 31, Statutes of 2013.

2. June 27, 2013

   Approved by the Governor.

3. June 17, 2013

   Enrolled and presented to the Governor at 10 a.m.

4. June 14, 2013

   Assembly amendments concurred in. (Ayes 35. Noes 1. Page 1373.) Ordered to engrossing and enrolling.

5. June 14, 2013

   In Senate. Concurrence in Assembly amendments pending.

6. June 14, 2013

   Read third time. Passed. (Ayes 59. Noes 16. Page 1985.) Ordered to the Senate.

7. June 14, 2013

   Ordered to third reading.

8. June 14, 2013

   Withdrawn from committee. (Ayes 54. Noes 25. Page 1983.)

9. June 12, 2013

   From committee with author's amendments. Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on BUDGET.

10. May 24, 2013

    Referred to Com. on BUDGET.

11. May 13, 2013

    In Assembly. Read first time. Held at Desk.

12. May 13, 2013

    Read third time. Passed. (Ayes 24. Noes 9. Page 892.) Ordered to the Assembly.

13. May 09, 2013

    Read second time. Ordered to third reading.

14. May 08, 2013

    Ordered to second reading.

15. May 08, 2013

    Withdrawn from committee.

16. January 24, 2013

    Referred to Com. on RLS.

17. January 11, 2013

    From printer. May be acted upon on or after February 10.

18. January 10, 2013

    (Corrected May 9).

19. January 10, 2013

    Introduced. Read first time. To Com. on RLS. for assignment. To print.

Sponsors

• Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review · Primary

Votes

Subjects