Department 1 – Honorable William H. Follett, Presiding Judge

Department 2 – Honorable Darren McElfresh

Department 3 – Commissioner Thomas Owen and/or Assigned Judge

At its July 28, 2015 meeting, the Judicial Council made 2015–2016 Trial Court Trust Fund (TCTF)and General Fund allocations to trial courts.  Attachment A provides a summary of each court’s base and one-time allocations for 2015–2016, and Attachments B through E provide details.  To assist courts in budgeting the allocations for the Schedule 1, Attachment F displays allocations by their associated General Ledger account.

2015-16 Trial Courts Allocations – Base and One-Time

The Trial Court Budget Advisory Committee’s report to the council provides helpful discussion and detail behind the allocations.  The following is the link to the report on the California Courts website:  http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20150728-itemH.pdf.

(Note: the report does not reflect all council actions as one allocation, the $13.3 million 2013-14 Benefits Subsidy Reduction Return Allocation, was made on June 26, 2015).

In addition, please note the following:

·         An additional $13.45 million in Proposition 47 workload funding will bedistributed in January 2016 based on each court’s share of statewide petitions for resentencing and reclassification from June 1, 2015 to November 30, 2015.

·         Any unallocated portion of the 2% reserve, $37.7 million this year, will be distributed back to courts– 75% of any unallocated portion by January 2016 and the remainder by March 2016.

·         The WAFM allocation of $67.9 million reflects the council’s June 26, 2015 action to reduce by $22.7 million, the amount of ongoing shortfall in TCTF fine and fee revenue that has not been backfilled from the state General Fund, from the $90.6 million provided by the Budget Act of 2015.

·         The council allocated $13.3 million one-time of the partially returned Department of Finance (DOF) funding reductions for estimated 2013–2014 employer subsidies of employee retirement contributions. In 2016–2017, courts that continue to provide employer-paid share of the employee retirement contribution will have their funding reduced by their portion of any unrestored funding and redistributed to those courts that do not.

As a reminder, California Rule of Court 10.620(f) requires trial courts to provide notice no later than 15 court days after “[r]eceipt of the annual allocation of the trial court budget from the Judicial Council after enactment of the Budget Act.” Since this email serves as notification of courts’ annual allocation for 2015–2016, courts must provide notice no later than August 19, 2015.  A court can provide notice by doing one of the following:

(a) posting this email and Attachment A of the attached workbook; 

(b) posting the link to the July 28, 2015 Judicial Council report above (Note: the meeting minutes reflecting the council’s actions regarding allocations will not be available prior to August 19, 2015); or

(c) posting the August 2015–2016 distribution #2 memo and the allocation table when sent to the courts on August 13, 2015.