Wednesday, December 09, 2015 JAC Index – Agenda: 8 am Supreme Court, 10 am 120-142 District Courts, 1 pm Board of Judicial Conduct and Ethics, 2 pm Law Examiners Board, 3 pm District Attorney-Casper, 4 pm District Attorney – Cheyenne All Agenda times are subject to change as the day progresses. 12/9/2015 8:01:44 AM Chairman Harshman brings meeting to order. Don Richards calls the roll. All present. Harshman: Welcome to the Supreme Court Agency Chief Justice Burke introduces the court. The full court is here. Justice Hill, Davis, Fox, Kautz, District Judges, Staff: Sharpe, Racines, Goyen, Trautwein, Dorsch, Thomas, Burke: Introductory remarks – Court Security, new justice centers, grant for security training. In 2015 over 1M appropriated for security improvements, grant for assessment, assessment identified specific improvements, broken down into 8 counties. In our budget this year, we have not requested money for additional security in the other districts. It was not clear what support we would get from counties as we went through the process. In February, we will apply for another assessment grant. Next year, we will ask for additional funds for court security. E-filing process in district courts is a project of magnitude. We have about 300 cases per year, # of pleadings is relatively small and uniform. When you go to district courts, 23, have been following local practice. In e-filing, we need uniformity. (probate, divorce, criminal, civil cases, declaratory judgement). This project is nothing like the Supreme Court project. We are ready to move to calendaring and e-filing. There is an exception request for additional individuals to help with this project. National center consultation. It is essential to understand what the project entails. 12/9/2015 8:13:54 AM Racines, CFO: Budget presentation: Harshman: Electronic budgets match the paper, so same page numbers. Racines: Handout “Addendum to the budget” has corrections for technical errors. Explanation of errors. Law examiners budget spreadsheet, pg. LE5, the amount is correct, the coding is not. Code 0521. Wyoming Center for Legal Aid changed name to Equal Justice for Wyoming. 12/9/2015 8:17:51 AM Racines: page 1 memorandum from Chief Justice Burke is overview. All circuit judges and/or division heads send requests to court administration who reviews them, then goes forward to judges. Last year was about 56 M. This year is about 59M. Increase in budget due to legislatively given compensation adjustment. We tried to streamline exception requests. We tried to fund with other than GF dollars. Page 6 is overview of Supreme Court. Chapter 17 reports generated out of IBAR and submitted separately. Division courts are presented separately. Page 7 and 8 is background information of the Supreme Court. Circuit courts have limited jurisdiction. It is over half of our total request. GF about 49.5M, special funding $, grant $. 12/9/2015 8:22:13 AM Harshman: We alternate chairman. Burns: Where is the 9+M in special revenue come from? Racines: A combination of several things. Largest chunk is judicial automation acct and civil service account, which comes from court costs or filing fees. Burns: Are court costs set by court or statute? Racines: It is a combination. $. Stats on series and % of budget. Personal services is about 75% of total. Std. budget is 80%. Circuit and district are higher %. Page 9 – Summary 12/9/2015 8:25:40 AM Racines: page 10- page 11 narrative about Supreme Court administration. 30 main employees. This budget provides for day to day operation, including continuing education. Std budget is 9+M with no exception requests. Details on page 13 and 14. Page 14 – Prose documents – This is a special revenue fund. Citizens can purchase packets of forms, which are listed on page 15. Funds going out are for reproduction of packets and updating of forms. Requesting $ spending authority. Stubson: How much ongoing work is there in determining other areas where prose packets make sense? Burke: There is ongoing work. We are looking at the guardianship area. Dorsch: We are adding packets. We work with judicial board of policy. Guardianship and name change packets and others beneficial to litigants Connolly: Court costs Racines: $10 purchase of packet Connolly: amount in acct Racines: approx. 169,000 Nicholas: Are documents available on line? Racines: one is online. They are working on a second one. Goal is to have them all online. We may come back for additional spending authority in future years. Stubson: fees per year? Racines: About 45000 brought in, 42000 spent for expense for 15-16. $ so far this year. Greear: Costs coming down the pike to enhance these fill in the blank forms. What authority do we have to increase the costs? Are you budgeting for that cost? Racines: Where we have build-up in account, I would use the balance before raising the cost. 12/9/2015 8:33:34 AM Racines: page 17-18 Children’s justice and special project is federally funded. Trautwein is coordinator. Std. budget request is for spending authority only. Nicholas: continuity of this program? Racines: We believe it will be continued. Sept. 30, 2017. Formula grant given to all 50 states. This funding was not impacted by sequestration. Nicholas: Growth? COLA? Racines: It has been about the same. It is a 3 part grant. 12/9/2015 8:36:06 AM Racines: page 19 – credit card convenience fees: Method of payment is successful. There is a $5 fee, which goes into the special revenue account. We pay fees to credit card merchant. Nicholas: Collections and expenditures Racines: Account has been building up. $299,000, spent about half for last biennium. $ this year. 700,000 exception request for spending authority. This is an IT request. Nicholas: Balance in acct Racines: 700,000+ Page 21, 22 Equal Justice Wyoming – Dorsch is director Dorsch: Program created in 2011, civil legal services throughout the state to low income. Pro Bono program. We provide support and training for pro bono attorneys, approx. 90. We provide clinics and mentor programs, information to the public, provide forms at centers. Website has 2000 visits per month. Remote access sites for skyping. Identify barriers and access to courts. Provide funding and grants to legal centers. Exception request of 233,000+ of spending authority. We use special revenue. Handout: Equal Wyoming Justice Grant Program. 1.6M+ this year. We receive donated space so overhead is small. IN 2015, 3200 people received services. We are looking to expand our grant program. Moniz: Requirements for clients Dorsch: Financial, income below 200% of the federal poverty level and asset testing. Must have a qualifying case. Family law, consumer, housing are the common cases. Burns: Does family law include divorce? Dorsch: yes, custody Burns: In divorce case, one party gets attorney from center. Where does the other get their attorney. Dorsch: That is an issue. One side can be disqualified for conflict of interest. We try to find a pro bono attorney. Burns: You fund a full time attorney. Who does that person work for? Dorsch: Employed by the program, if full time. Teton County is the only one that has contract attorneys. Burns: Young attorneys, beginning ? Dorsch: yes Stubson: spending authority- strategic plan? Dorsch: At this time, we ask for RFP’s. People apply for grants, identify areas of need. Underrepresented areas of state. Moniz: Is there a financial limit for client? (costs) Dorsch: There is not a limit on the number of hours. Connolly: Growth of program. Charge to client? Dorsch: We ask client to pay filing fees or outside costs. There is no charge for the services. Harshman: 4 employees? Dorsch: Myself, admin asst, staff attorney for probono, staff attorney who is technology manager Harshman: All 4 employees in Cheyenne, do not represent clients// Dorsch: Correct Harshman: $ Can you lean that up? Grant program is usually 40%. Decrease staff? Dorsch: I would not consider the staff overhead. They serve the entire state. Harshsman: Some services are probono. Some are grants, which hire attorneys. What is value of probono? Dorsch: There is not mandatory reporting. Over 200 clients received services. Harshman: Are the 200 part of the 3174? Dorsch: Yes Wasserburger: A person applying for services has 200% below the poverty line. Number? Dorsch: around 24,000 for single, around 36,000 for a couple. Harshman: What is the value amount per hour for services? Quantity? Dorsch: Employed attorneys make much less than private attorneys. Harshman: I would like to see the data Perkins: The probono are probably 50% discounted. 200 cases totally pro-bono. Ball park number probably double or triple the grant in value. Harshman: Length of time for grant program Dorsch: 2012 Harshman: Always 4 employees? Dorsch: Always authorized 4, not fully staffed to begin Racines: 233490 spending authority budget 2+ M total. Balance is just under 3.8M. Request brings spending authority closer to the fund amount being brought in on a biennial basis. Burke: Commend legislature. Innovative approach. Old legal model was to take money and employ attorneys. That was considered. Decision to figure out how to leverage those funds. Three prongs are self- represented litigant, paid attorneys, pro-bono attorneys. Leadership and board have addressed all three prongs. Divorce form is like turbo tax. Racines: Special revenue fund request, 2.8 M for EJW Nicholas: Have you considered an endowment for this and court automation? Burke: The court has specifically not done that. Money in account accumulated for about a year and a half. Goal is to get as much money put to use. Legislature has struggled with that. We requested spending authority and it was disapproved. We did not understand that. 12/9/2015 9:01:33 AM Racines: page 25, 26 Judicial Nominating Commission. Interview candidates for judicial vacancies. No exception request. Stubson: Steady stream of judicial replacements, retirements. Will pace change? Burke: This has been a light year. In previous years, had close to 20, which is half. I think it will pick up again because a significant portion are older than 65. Wasserburger: I served on this commission. Burke: Interviewing is daunting process for candidate. Nicholas: Racines: 30% are or will be older than 65 in the next 5 years. Burns: Mandatory retirement age? 12/9/2015 9:07:38 AM Racines: page 30 State law library, 1.5+M budget, no exception request Ross: law libraries across the state Racines: not connected to state law library Fenn: Most counties have done away with their county law library. Burns: largest item is education, recreational supplies Racines: Fancy word for books. State accounting system Burns: Court decisions around country Racines: publications Burns: a lot of books Racines: Legal books are very expensive. 12/9/2015 9:12:31 AM Page 32 Circuit Court Division. 0501-0505 units are shared budgets. Remaining 9 units relate to the 9 districts or circuits throughout the state. 2 Exception requests Page 33-35, General information and statistics. Circuit courts -$31M annually pass through the courts. Perkins: Ability for judges to move from place to place to cover court loads. Burke: Caseload demand. Travel happens to some extent. What can we do to make it happen more if resources are available. Changes in Campbell county. Judge Castano regularly travels. Judges are willing to help. It can be difficult for a judge to give up part of their docket. Court rule 41- issuance of search warrants language limits circuit judges to jurisdiction in which they live. Types of things we will look at, rules or statutes that are impediments. Perkins: More efficient rules, save a position later on because of balance of workload. You have some authority for the B-11 process. There may be additional travel costs. Burke: agree Racines: page 37 – payments for jurors. About 65 jury trials per year, $600 per day, jurors paid $30 per day and travel expenses. Stubson: increase in jury trials due to change? Racines: I do not believe there was a drastic change Nicholas: Fund balance Racines: This is GF dollars. Fund reverts to GF Balance is about $82,000 Page 39 – Court Magistrate – contingency fund. Magistrate sits in for the judge. Small fund. Useful fund. $9200 std. budget. No request. Nicholas: What are the fees for a civil jury trial in civil court? Racines: 40 for civil, small claims court is 10 Nicholas: Separate fee if you are asking for a jury trial? Racines: No Ross: Criminal trials Fenn: For district court, there is a filing fee which depends on 6 or 12 person jury for civil cases. Criminal cases always have juries. Nicholas: Where do the fees go? Fenn: Clerk of district court. Nicholas: To create a fee for a filing fee in circuit court, do you need a statutory change or can it be a rule change? Greear: How many trials are criminal and civil? Nicholas: A lot of folks will file for jury which will never happen. Racines: $20 of the 40 fee goes back into the GF. Remainder is split Burke: Facilities are a major impediment to bringing in another judge. 12/9/2015 9:30:25 AM Racines: page 41 – Equipment $ std. budget, Exception request for copy machines, Thermopolis, Gillette, Lusk. $23214 exception request $118784 total budget Burns: What is the difference in the cost of the machines? Racines: Get copy machine from local vendor for good service. Options in machine, brands of machines. Racines: page 43 -4th shared budget – examination of shared courts – Trying to take cash component out of system, still huge amount of cash so auditing is imperative. Internal auditor has a 2 yr. audit cycle. Rover clerk travels the state to work in any court that is short staffed. $658,587 std. budget. No requests. Racines: Last unit in shared is temporary services. Paying out of 900 series is not the best way to do that. Basically AWAC services. They should be paid as contractors, for taxes and health insurance if they work over 3 months. Harshman: How many people? Racines: Harshman: If we move them to AWAC, there must be a position count. Racines: Technical error. We are requesting 5 AWAC positions. Moving 900 series funding to the 100 series. Harshman: It still works in the 900 series, does it not? Racines: State auditor has said to pay out of 100 Richards: It is best. 900 series for temp or contractors. Employees with set times for work are AWAC. Harshman: Eligible for benefits? Racines: Most hiring times have been 3 months or less, so I do not expect to be offering benefits. Burkhart: pg 46 typo? Racines: yes $50,000 in salary, $10,000 in benefits Perkins: Can we put a restriction on AWAC to be less than 3 months? Hibbard: I think this is right to do. $846 for one month of insurance. Ross: Why 5 employees? Racines: Conservative number Burns: Who is we? Who makes the decision? Racines: State court administrator and myself, with other staff. If we have doubts, we would go to chief justice burke. Last of shared budgets. 12/9/2015 9:43:36 AM Racines: 1st – no exception request. Page 50 2nd district – Greear: exception request for photo copiers – no budgeted item in individual circuits for office furniture, a recurring item. Racines: unit 0421 is a code we are not allowed to budget for. It must always be an exception request. Greear: office supplies and printing – Is that an appropriate place for photocopying services? Racines: Per state coding, that line item is for supplies like paper, toner, forms, etc. Greear, Harshman Racines: 2nd district – $ std. budget, no exception request 3rd district has 4 counties. – 4m+ std. budget, no exception request 4th district – listed as magistrates, available full time but work part time based on work load. 1m+ std. budget 5th district – $ std. budget Pg 62 6th district – 3M+ std. budget, exception request for a permanently assigned vehicle for Judge Castano. It is a 2 part request, vehicle and maintenance. He drove well over 10,000 miles in personal care in 2015. We expect his travel to increase. $37,296 exception request Perkins: page 64 – Any adjustment to the in-state travel costs? Would an exception request have an impact on that cost? Racines: These budgets are very tight. Would we be able to take a cut in travel costs with the addition of this car? That would be very difficult Perkins: Travel expenditures this biennium? Racines: Will get that information to you Stubson: Precedence for assigning a car? Racines: General guideline, if putting 10,000 miles on personal car Perkins: 3rd district has vehicle Racines: Other districts have vehicles. Connolly: Cook County – Is travel by choice of judge? Racines: Judge is relatively new and is willing to help with the workload in Campbell County. Burke: Workload in Campbell County has always been high, while Weston and Crooke have been low. Judge Castano has been excellent. He helps with district court as well. Connolly: Mechanism in place to take back a car if it is not being used? Racines: No formal process in place. We evaluate yearly, check the mileage. Moniz: Do you pay mileage? Racines: yes we do, we pay the high rate. Moniz: So why isn’t in state travel in budget going down? Racines: In tight budget has limited travel. Those funds are also for attending conferences, training, state bar meeting so they still need a travel budget Perkins: For 13-14 and 15 to date, show us the travel budgets and the unexpended amounts. Racines: will do Page 65 7th district , no exception 9th district, $4M, no exception Court Technology, page 74 Court technology, general fund, hardware and software, internet, maintenance, video appearance network. Judicial systems, revenue portion of court system. $10 added to court costs and filing fees. Exception request of $9.9M, 6 priorities Justice Davis: support for district, circuit and Supreme Court. Single system Page 76, Equipment replacement for circuit and district courts. Conference bridge needs replacement. Julie Goyen: Circuit court needs for replacement of 29 servers. Harshman: Use of cloud storage, ETS approval? Lily Sharpe: National Center for State Courts audited IT system. Recommendation to have chief information officer, Julie Goyen, with project managers. 1 data center. Greear: Cloud based storage is the future. Goyen: Still considering cloud storage for the future. Ross: Cost just for servers? Goyen: Also work station and printer replacement in addition to servers. Replacement looks at need and functioning level. Davis: Priority 2, page 82. Process of installing uniform case management system. Next phase is scheduling program and electronic filing. Need people now. Funded from non-general fund monies. Harshman: Request less? Racines: page 82, $42,249 corrected, $452,369 Nicolas: Software companies reasonable? Davis: Developed for district courts, as needed. Supported by National Center for State Courts. First for district court e-filing, but have done for appellate courts. 12/9/2015 10:57:11 AM Nicolas: 2 new positions using funds from revenue account. When will need to supplement? Racines: Balance of $5.1M, not an issue in near future for depletion of account. Could charge nominal fee for e-filing when it is available. Perkins: Automated filing will be mandatory? Davis: Yes. Clerks will have some review of filings. Ross: Effect on equal justice area with automated mandatory filings? Davis: Paper service will have to made available to self-represented litigants. Davis: Page 76, District court filing system hoped to be in place by now, adapted to circuit courts. Not all modules completed at district court. Full Court system in district courts, but manufacturer of system has discontinued support. Use of general fund and credit card convenience revenue funds for upgrade of system. Goyen: Clerk familiar with current system, just with upgrade. Installation at one location, not 29. Upgrade would enable case load support by Supreme Court. Davis: Priority 4, new appellate court filing software with one user interface. General fund $$. Goyen: Lessen work load for IT staff. Perkins: Maintenance fee? Goyen: Costs should not be significantly increased. $51,000/year for appellate court. Davis: Priority 5, court room technology. Goyen: Baseline needs include digital recording, hearing assistance, sound system, evidence presentation system. Stubson: Continue as one time requested or built into standard budget? Racines: Would prefer as on-going funding, including 901. Burke: State courtrooms should all have same IT capabilities. Burke: Priority 6, page 78. Wyoming Learning Center, Eydie Trautwein, Children’s Justice and Special Projects Coordinator. $280,000 matching funds obtained thru State Bar Association. Seeking matching funding authority of $100,000 and $50,000 general fund monies to receive more funds to finish exhibits. Racines: page 84, Judicial Retirement. Prior to 1998. Unfunded plan, supplied by general fund. $2.1M Racines: page 88, Judicial Policy and Administration. Funding for items for all 3 court levels include for leave payouts, West Law service, state bar membership, and magistrates for drug courts. $708,000 Connolly: HRM payroll system? Racines: No major complaints, frustration with ESS system. Burns: Prioritize exception requests, same priorities as presented? Burke: Jury Management System, $656,000, receiving bids, low priority. Sharpe: IT projects important, reallocate jury management system funds approved last year and let $400,000 revert. 12/9/2015 12:02:08 PM 120-142 District Courts First Judicial District, Judge Steve Sharpe, withdrawing $25,000 exception request Title 25. Adjourned until 1:20 p.m.