The California Strategic Growth Plan
Judicial

The Trial Court Facilities Act of 2002 provided for the transfer of local court facilities to the state to ensure consistency in the provision of justice and to ensure that facilities are managed in a way that provides safe and secure courts. Since that time, the Judicial Branch has worked to complete the transfers and to create an organization that will be responsible for the design, construction and operation of a unified statewide court system. As of January 2006, the Judicial Council plans to complete 18 court facility transfers from 11 counties. The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is working with counties to transfer approximately 100 additional court facilities by the end of the 2006-07 fiscal year.

The state's court system is supported by a substantial infrastructure inventory, including 451 trial court facilities, 11 appellate court facilities and 3 Supreme Court facilities. A significant number of these facilities do not meet current guidelines for efficient and safe court environments and, overall, the facilities are overcrowded with no capacity to handle growth in judicial workload. The AOC estimates that $9.6 billion is needed to bring all the courts up to secure and safe standards and accommodate growth. The SGP proposes $2 billion of new general obligation bond authority to address these infrastructure issues. While this amount will not fund all facility needs identified by the AOC over the next decade, it will provide immediate funding to handle the most critical infrastructure issues. In addition, this funding will enable the courts to significantly leverage private funding through public-private partnerships. These partnerships might include (but not be limited to) arrangements such as:

  • Exchanging outdated and inefficient court facilities located on valuable urban property for new court facilities on less prominently located property.
  • Co-locating revenue-generating commercial space (e.g., law offices) in newly constructed court buildings.
  • As demonstrated in Canada, the UK and elsewhere, design-build-operate contracts in which the private sector constructs and operates a court building in exchange for lease payments.
With an asset inventory as large as the court system's, there are very likely many opportunities for successful public-private partnerships that would increase the resources available to the court system for its facility needs. Because of the formative nature of the court system's public-private partnership efforts, it is difficult to estimate the amount of resources that will be leveraged. However, $2 billion over the next several years appears to be a reasonable target.

In addition, the court system receives about $125 million per year from certain fine and fee revenues that are dedicated to addressing facility needs. The ongoing nature of this revenue stream will continue to be an important part of the court system's multiple funding approach to addressing its infrastructure needs.
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CHAPTER HIGHLIGHTS for The California Strategic Growth Plan Back to Top

 Public Safety
 K-12 Education
 Higher Education
 Flood Control and Water Supply
 Transportation
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 Other Natural Resources
 Housing
 Other Public Service
 Accountability
 Affordability
PRINTABLE BUDGET DOCUMENTS Back to Top
Budget Summary - The California Strategic Growth Plan (pdf * - 91K) -
Provides this entire The California Strategic Growth Plan Chapter in pdf format.