May 5, 1999

The Task Force on Trial Court Employees

455 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102-3660

October 12, 1999

TO: The Governor of the State of California, Members of the Legislature, The Judicial Council, The Judiciary, The Trial Courts, Counties, local and state employee organizations and other interested parties:

The attached document is the second interim report of the Task Force on Trial Court Employees. As you may already know, the task force was created by the Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Funding Act of 1997 to recommend a personnel system for the trial courts of California. The work of the task force will affect the personnel structure of over 18,000 trial court employees in California’s 58 counties. The final recommendation of the task force will take effect upon subsequent actions of the Legislature and the Governor of the State of California.

As you may already be aware, this task force is composed of representatives from every affected constituency in the trial courts. There are labor representatives, court executive officers, county representatives, state representatives, and judges on the task force. I am proud of the fact that these diverse representatives have produced this second interim report through a consensus-based process.

Earlier this year, the task force distributed its first interim report which described the task force’s work up to May 1999. The attached report describes all the personnel system components recommended by the task force to date, including: classification, salary, employment protection systems, meet and confer, defined-benefit retirement, group insurance and other employer-provided benefits, accrued leave, federally regulated benefits, deferred compensation, retiree group insurance benefits, and transition issues.

Throughout our many meetings, the task force has sought to create a personnel system that would:

provide local trial court management;
maintain current trial court employee benefits and salaries;
respect the rights and contributions of the employees of California's trial courts; and
create no significant cost increases to the State as the funding body.

We invite your comments regarding our recommendations for each personnel component and the consequences of those recommendations. In making such comments, you will help us to ensure that all perspectives and issues are considered.

Likewise, we invite your comments on the various status proposals of state, court, and county as they are set forth in the report. We recognize that in achieving our goals of ensuring that all benefits of employees are maintained as well as providing for local court management, these status definitions may have to be modified. We encourage your comments in helping us make such modifications to the status definitions as may be necessary to help us achieve our goals and make our final recommendation of a court status that serves the interests of the employees, the courts, and the state of California.

The attached report is also being posted to the task force’s Web site at www2.courtinfo.ca.gov/tcemployees. Printing costs prevent the task force from distributing this second interim report to all 18,000 trial court employees. However, the task force encourages court administrators and recognized employee organizations to make copies available to employees and/or inform them of the report’s Web site availability.

I would like to publicly thank the members of the task force for their consistent commitment to this process. I would also like to publicly thank the staff assigned to this task force for their exceptional efforts in assisting the task force in performing its function.

Sincerely,

Justice James A. Ardaiz, Chair

Task Force on Trial Court Employees

JAA:es

Attachment