1. Overview
1. Spending by Major Program
2. Major Budget Changes

Major Issues

Judiciary and Criminal Justice

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Growth in Prison Population Has Slowed

• The California Department of Corrections (CDC) projects that the prison population will increase about 6.4 percent annually, reaching 204,000 inmates by June 2002.

• Although the growth continues to be significant, it is substantially less than projected in recent forecasts.

• A principal reason for the change is the slowing of new admissions to prison from the courts, which appears to be closely linked to the drop in crime.

The Legislature Needs to Overhaul the Internal Affairs Investigation Process in the CDC

• The CDC has been plagued by serious allegations of misconduct--some unproven and under investigation, others proven in courts and personnel hearings--by some of its correctional personnel. Some of these cases have led to court judgements and settlements which have collectively cost the state millions of dollars.

• Our review found that the internal affairs investigation process is fragmented, duplicative, and ineffective. We recommend steps to improve the process.

Youth Authority Population Expected to Remain Stable

• Youth Authority's ward and parole populations are expected to remain stable over the next several years.

• Recently, counties began paying higher fees for committing less serious offenders to the Youth Authority. These fee increases provide counties with an incentive to treat these youth in the local communities, thereby resulting in lower ward populations.

Reforms Needed in California's Juvenile Justice System

• A blue-ribbon task force took a look at the state of juvenile crime and the juvenile justice system and made many recommendations for reform. We recommend that the Legislature enact many of the recommendations and modify others.

Trial Court Funding Consolidation Proposal Makes Sense, But Needs Cost Control Measures

• The Governor's proposal to consolidate funding responsibility for support of the trial courts at the state level has merit.

• However, because county costs will be capped with the state picking up all increased costs in the future, the Legislature will need to ensure that there are adequate cost control and performance measures in place.

Local Agencies Should Pay for Crime Laboratory Services

• In order to properly align local government's funding and programmatic responsibilities for investigation and prosecution of criminal cases, we recommend the enactment of legislation requiring law enforcement agencies to pay for the costs of services provided by the Department of Justice's crime laboratories.

Overview

The budget proposes total expenditures of $5.6 billion for judiciary and criminal justice programs in 1997-98. This is an increase of $517 million, or 10 percent, over estimated current-year spending. This increase is due to a number of factors, including declining federal fund support (and thus increased state costs) to pay the costs of incarcerating undocumented felons in state prison, the projected increase in the state's prison and parole populations, and full-year costs in 1997-98 of programs begun during the current year.

The budget also proposes to consolidate funding for operation of the trial courts at the state level. As part of this proposal, counties would transmit $890 million to the state that would, in turn, be appropriated to the courts in the budget bill (these funds are not counted in the expenditure figures).

The budget proposes General Fund expenditures of $4.9 billion for judiciary and criminal justice programs, an increase of $135 million, or 2.8 percent, above estimated General Fund expenditures in the current year. This relatively small increase is misleading because it masks an important funding shift which, when taken into account, results in General Fund expenditures increasing by $425 million, or 8.9 percent. Specifically, as part of the trial court funding consolidation proposal, the 1997-98 Governor's Budget proposes to shift about $291 million in General Fund revenues to the Trial Court Trust Fund and, in turn, expend this amount from this fund rather than the General Fund.

Figure 1 shows expenditures from all state funds for judiciary and criminal justice programs since 1990-91. Figures for 1994-95 through 1997-98 have been reduced to reflect federal funds the state received or is expected to receive to offset costs of handling undocumented felons. As Figure 1 shows, total expenditures for judiciary and criminal justice programs have increased by $1.9 billion since 1990-91, representing an average annual increase of 6 percent.

Spending by Major Program

Figure 2
Judiciary and Criminal Justice Budget Summary 1995-96 Through 1997-98
(Dollars in Millions)
	Actual 1995-96	Estimated 1996-97	Proposed 1997-98	Change From 1996-97
				Amount	Percent
Department of Corrections
General Fund	$3,211.6	$3,453.7	$3,705.2	$251.5	7.3%
Special funds	36.5	45.4	47.0	1.6	3.5
Bond funds	13.1	9.0	--	-9.0	-100.0
Reimbursements	54.8	115.0	79.0	-36.0	-31.3
Totals	$3,316.0	$3,623.1	$3,831.1	$208.1	5.7%
Department of the Youth Authority
General Fund	$393.5	$393.7	$360.3	-$33.4	-8.5%
Special funds	2.5	2.2	2.9	0.7	33.2
Bond funds	12.8	9.7	5.2	-4.6	-47.1
Reimbursements	20.2	30.1	63.8	33.7	112.2
Totals	$428.9	$435.6	$432.1	-$3.5	-0.8%
Federal Offset for Undocumented Felons
Federal funds	$30.5	$441.0	$298.7	-$142.3	-32.3%
Trial Court Fundinga
General Fund	$479.4	$488.7	$236.9	-$251.8	-51.5%
Special funds	154.1	155.5	534.2	378.7	243.6
Totals	$633.5	$644.2	$771.1	$126.9	19.7%
Judicial
General Fund	$163.9	$179.1	$196.6	$17.5	9.8%
Special funds and reimbursements	1.0	8.6	40.2	31.6	368.8
Totals	$164.9	$187.7	$236.7	$49.1	26.1%
Department of Justice
General Fund	$195.6	$224.0	$220.3	-$3.7	-1.6%
Special funds	76.7	78.1	78.4	0.3	0.4
Reimbursements	79.5	89.4	88.1	-1.2	-1.4
Totals	$351.8	$391.5	$386.8	-$4.6	-1.2%
a Trial Court Funding figures for 1997-98 do not include $890 million in proposed contributions by counties that would be appropriated to trial courts in the budget bill.

Major Budget Changes

Figure 3
Judiciary and Criminal Justice Proposed Major Changes for 1997-98 All State Funds
	Department of Corrections	Requested:	$3.8 Billion
		Increase:	$208 Million	(+5.7%)
	+$138 million for full-year cost adjustments
	+$56 million for inmate and population increases
	+$19 million for increased lease payment bond costs
	-$72 million for various limited-term and one-time expenditures
	Department of the Youth Authority	Requested:	$432 Million
		Decrease:	$3.5 Million	(-0.8%)
	+$1.4 million to provide full relief staffing for certain institution personnel on their regular days off
	-$0.7 million for ward housing adjustments thereby allowing a reduction in staff
	Trial Court Funding	Requested:	$1.7 Billion
		Increase:	$1 Billion	(+149%)
	+$978 million for increased state support of trial courts ($890 million reimbursed by counties and $88 million from increased court revenues)
	+$14 million to provide additional reimbursement to trial court jurors
	+$8 million for trial court security projects
	+$4 million for creation of 40 new judgeships in the last quarter of 1997-98

The Budget Proposes to Provide Full Funding for Caseload and Certain Other Cost Increases. This includes funding for projected inmate population increases of 5.9 percent in the CDC and ward population increases of about 1.3 percent in the Youth Authority. The budget contains no proposals that would result in any significant reduction in the inmate and ward populations.

In addition, the budget proposes to provide full funding for caseload increases in several other judicial and criminal justice programs. These include the Judicial's court-appointed defense counsel and the Department of Justice's program that handles appeals in criminal cases.

The budget provides an augmentation for the Judicial branch and the CDC for the costs of merit salary adjustments that will be granted in 1997-98, while requiring most other state departments to absorb these costs.

The Budget Proposes to Consolidate and Restructure the Trial Court Funding Program. The budget proposes to consolidate funding for support of trial courts at the state level. The proposal is similar to a proposal contained in the 1996-97 Governor's Budget which failed passage in the Legislature.

Specifically, the Governor's budget proposes the following:

• The 38 largest counties transmit $890 million to the state Trial Court Trust Fund for support of the trial courts. (This is the amount that all 58 counties provided for support of the courts in 1994-95.) This amount would be capped and would not change in future years.
• The 20 smallest counties would not transmit money to the state, but the state would pay all of their trial court costs.
• About $291 million in fine and penalty revenues would be redirected from the General Fund to the Trial Court Trust Fund, which would be used to support the trial courts.
• Court filing fee revenues would be increased by $88 million, which would be used to provide additional state support for the courts.

In the budget year, the net effect of these changes is to increase the state's General Fund costs by about $10.7 million. In future years, however, the state's costs would increase since the state would be completely responsible for funding growth in trial court costs.

The budget also proposes about $27.3 million in General Fund augmentations for distribution to the trial courts. The most significant of the proposals include $14 million to reimburse jurors for the costs of their meals, parking, dependent care, and mileage; $8 million to enhance trial court security; and $4 million to create an additional 40 trial court judgeships in the last quarter of 1997-98.

The Budget Assumes that the State Will Receive Less Federal Fund Reimbursements for Incarceration and Parole of Undocumented Immigrants. As indicated above, the budget assumes that the state will receive $299 million in federal funds in 1997-98 to offset the state's costs to incarcerate and supervise undocumented immigrants in the CDC and the Youth Authority. This is a decrease of $142 million below the Governor's budget's estimate of the amount the state will receive in the current year ($441 million). The principal reason for the decrease is that the anticipated current-year reimbursements are artificially high because California will receive the bulk of two federal fiscal year (FFY) appropriations (1996 and 1997) in a single state fiscal year.

Of the current-year amount, $252 million has already been awarded to California from existing federal appropriations for FFY 96. The administration's estimates of the remaining funds to be received in the current year ($189 million) is based on its projections of California's share of monies appropriated nationwide in the FFY 97 appropriations, which have not been distributed to states.

For the budget year, the Governor's budget assumes that it will receive the remaining portion of its estimated share of the FFY 97 appropriation ($63 million), plus an amount ($236 million) that it anticipates Congress and the President will appropriate for FFY 98.

The Budget Proposes Few New Significant Program Initiatives. The budget proposes relatively few significant new judiciary and criminal justice program initiatives for 1997-98. The most significant proposals include: (1) $14.9 million in federal funds for the Board of Corrections to distribute to local governments to build or expand local adult and juvenile detention facilities; (2) $5 million from the General Fund for the CDC to provide substance abuse treatment to about 1,000 inmates at the new California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison at Corcoran; (3) $3.4 million from the General Fund for development of case management and statistical information systems for the Judicial Branch; (4) $1.9 million from the General Fund (and an additional $8 million in the capital outlay budget) for implementation of a "disability placement plan" to ensure that all inmates and parolees with disabilities have equal access to CDC programs, consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act; (5) $1.4 million from the General Fund (and an identical amount from redirections) for the Youth Authority to provide full relief staffing for senior counselor and group supervisors on their days off.

In addition, the budget proposes to continue a number of new programs and expenditures begun in the current year. These include $3 million for the Youth Authority's "Young Men as Fathers" program begun as part of the Governor's overall proposal relating to mentoring, and $10.7 million in new federal funds under the federal Violence Against Women Act to be allocated by the Office of Criminal Justice Planning to local law enforcement agencies and providers of services to victims of crime.

It should be noted that one major program established by the Legislature in the 1996-97 Budget Act--the Juvenile Crime Enforcement and Accountability Challenge Grant Program, which will provide $50 million in grants to counties for programs to combat juvenile crime--was not continued in the Governor's budget for 1997-98.