San Mateo Court Reporters Included In Potential Layoffs Due To Accounting Errors
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COCRA received word last Thursday, and confirmed in the media Friday, that court reporters in San Mateo are included in a group of employees that may be laid off due to “internal accounting errors” by the court. An article published by the Mercury News says that although the layoffs are a result of a $3.89 million deficit due to state cutbacks, an internal email sent out to court employees points out that the real cause may be otherwise.
According to a press release issued Thursday, the $3.89 million court budget deficit in the fiscal year that ended June 30 was “due to cutbacks in funding from the state.”
But in reality, top court officials discovered that the deficit was caused by “internal accounting, tracking and analysis deficiencies,” according to an e-mail Court Executive Officer John Fitton sent to employees Thursday morning, just before the news release on the layoffs went out.
Investigators from the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts are now trying to figure out why top court officials did not know about the $3.89 million gap until the finance director reported it to Fitton about a week and a half ago, Fitton said Friday.
That investigation is expected to last another week or two, Fitton said, and will aim to find out whether the error can be traced to the court’s accounting systems or its employees — or both. So far, there is no evidence anyone intentionally covered up the deficit or did anything illegal, he said.
Needless to say court employees are in complete shock as they thought they would be able to make it through the 2009/2010 fiscal year without layoffs. An email sent in from one of the San Mateo court reporters laid out what the layoffs mean in the starkest terms possible.
60 court employees will be given notice on 9/1/09, and their last day will be around 10/2/09. We will have 25% fewer employees running the SM Courts from 2.5 years ago. Layoffs are based on hours worked/positions held. In other words, if you have seniority and a job that is not slated to go away, you won’t be let go. If you have a job that is slated to go away, you will be let go, regardless of seniority.
According to the Mercury News article the union representing court employees, SEIU Local 521, is holding a rally Tuesday “to protest the potential layoffs.”
COCRA will continue to provide updates on this matter as they progress.
Posted on August 24th, 2009 by admin
3 Comments
August 25th, 2009 at 1:29 am
That’s a picture of the San Mateo County History Museum with this article. It is not a courthouse.
August 25th, 2009 at 8:58 am
You are correct Mr. Kuhn. We posted a photo of the old courthouse and that is now a museum. Correction made. Thanks for the tip.
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:33 am
Shame on the Court Executive Officer, John C. Fitton, the PJ, and the Executive Committee. Now that the courts are no longer under county jurisdiction, they aren’t accountable to anyone, not even the county auditor’s office or the board of supervisors. They are running their organizations like “cowboys”. This isn’t the ‘wild west”! This “cowboy mentality” is clearly evidenced here and with articles from the SacBee on the Placer CEO compensation and the published report of all the CEOs compensation.
http://www.sacbee.com/localgov/story/1971723.html?storylink=lingospot_related_articles
In Contra Costa, our CEO makes more total compensation than our County Administrator who oversees 10,000+ employees. In fact, she makes more than Obama’s top cabinet members and even the LA Superior Court CEO who has an organization 5+ times the size of Contra Costa. As Court Reporters, we need to rally our newspapers to further investigate and expose these CEOs for the mishandling of our court budgets. Our presiding judges and Executive Committee member judges also need to held accountable and stop acting like mere “puppets” of their CEOs. More layoffs and furloughs will occur as these CEOs continue to pad their own wallets.