Click on the link which will take you the CRB’s website, and then under the “What’s New” link, click on “CRB Today – Board Newsletter, Spring 2012.”

You’ll find the article entitled, “Pitfalls of Privatizing Court Reporters on page 3.

The following is a quote from the article.

“With several of the courts across the state no longer providing court reporters in civil courtrooms, attorneys and litigants are being forced to make their own arrangements to bring in a court reporter. Freelancers should beware of rushing into a California state court without knowing applicable statutes.“

A group consisting of officials and their union rep met with the two administrators of Sonoma Superior Court this past Monday in order to discuss the word count multiplier. Apparently the meeting was a cordial and informative one in which the officials laid out for the administrators all of the problems that would arise should the WCM be implemented.

The officials must have been very convincing in their arguments as evidenced by the letter sent to them today.

We will be updating this story as we get more info and those of you attending the Summit for Officials on May 5th will be able to hear a full report from the official reporters representing Sonoma.

The following information is from a bill that COCRA introduced back in 2006. If AB 2305 had passed, statewide billing for court transcripts would have become standardized and more user-friendly.

Here are the highlights:

*Transcript billing by the page
*Universal transcript format
*Prohibition on loaning transcripts

Wait, there’s more!

*Originals: $3.57/page
*Copy: .63/page
*18% premium for civil
*50% premium for all daily service

The Brick Wall: An agreement between the Legislature and the Bar to a three-year moratorium on civil fee increases . The Bar successfully argued that new transcript rates were subject to the fee moratorium; therefore, the AB2305 was pulled until the moratorium was over.

Would AB2305 have been the solution to our current word count woes? YES!! COCRA still believes page rate is the answer. The civil fee moratorium is over. Now is the time for serious reform.

Bring back AB2305, The Transcript Reform Act!

BILL NUMBER: AB 2305 INTRODUCED
BILL TEXT

INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Klehs

FEBRUARY 22, 2006

An act to amend Sections 69950, 69951, and 69554 of the Government Code, relating to courts.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AB 2305, as introduced, Klehs Courts: court reporting.

Existing law establishes the fees for transcription services of court reporters. Existing law provides that the fee for transcription
for original ribbon or printed copy is 85 for each 100 words, and for each copy purchased at the same time, 15 for each 100 words. Existing law also provides that the fee for a first copy not simultaneously purchased with the original is 20 for each 100 words, and for each additional copy, purchased at the same time, 15 for each 100 words.

This bill would increase those fees to $3.57 a page for each original printed copy and 63 a page for each copy. The bill would also authorize the fee for transcription in civil matters upon order of the court to be increased in the amount of 18% per page more than those fees set forth above. The bill would also specify the formatting for transcripts, make related changes, and would set forth findings and declarations of the Legislature.

Existing law authorizes a court reporter in civil cases to charge for transcription an additional 50% for special daily copy service.

This bill would instead authorize an additional 50% fee for special daily copy service for all matters.

Existing law authorizes a court, party, or person who has purchased a transcript to reproduce a copy or portion thereof as an exhibit, pursuant to court order or rule, or for internal use, without paying a further fee to the reporter, but prohibits otherwise providing or selling a copy or copies to any other party or person.

This bill would also prohibit loaning a copy or copies to any other party or person.

Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no. State-mandated local program: no.

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares the following:

(a) Official court reporters and court reporters pro tempore employed by the courts are currently paid under a dual payment structure in which the base salary of the court reporter is supplemented by income from preparing transcripts and providing other transcription services.

(b) The dual compensation structure protects the state from bearing the full cost of transcript preparation and the provision of other transcription services with the attendant consequences of overtime liability.

(c) Consistency in pricing of transcript preparation and the provision of other transcription services promotes the sound public policy of ensuring that the public is informed about the price of the transcripts they are purchasing. Further, consistency in pricing assists in combating the practice of inappropriate overcharging for the preparation of transcripts and the provision of other services.

(d) In order to ensure full and fair compensation of official court reporters and court reporters pro tempore employed by the court, and in order to attract and retain official court reporters and court reporters pro tempore employed by the courts, of sufficient skill and competence to serve the needs of the justice system, it is imperative that the system of dual compensation provide for sufficient payment of transcription services.

(e) Therefore, it is necessary to revise the fees and formats for transcripts prepared by official court reporters and court reporters
pro tempore accordingly.

SEC. 2. Section 69950 of the Government Code is amended to read:
69950. (a) The A transcript prepared by an official reporter or official reporter pro tempore employed by a court shall be subject to the following fees and format:
(a) The fee for transcription for any matter, other than civil matters, for an original ribbon or printed copy is eighty-five cents ($0.85) three dollars fifty-seven cents ($3.57) for each 100 words page, and for each copy purchased at the same time by the court, party, or other person purchasing the original, fifteen cents ($0.15) for each 100 words is sixty-three cents($0.63) for each page .
(b) The fee for a first copy to any court, party, or other person who does not simultaneously purchase the original shall be twenty cents ($0.20) for each 100 words, and for each additional
copy, purchased at the same time, fifteen cents ($0.15) for each 100 words transcription in civil matters or upon order of the court shall be increased in the amount of 18 percent per page above the fees set forth in subdivision (a) .

(c) A “page” means any page required by statute, rule, regulation, or order of the court.

(d) Transcripts shall be formatted as follows:

(1) Twenty-eight lines per page, numbered one to 28, inclusive.
(2) Text shall be double-spaced.
(3) Each page shall be numbered consecutively at the bottom right, below the last line of text.
(4) The top and bottom margins shall be no less than either .75 or.8 inches.
(5) The left margin from the document’s edge to the line numbering shall be 1.25 or 1.3 inches.
(6) The left margin from the document’s edge to the first character of a line of text shall be 1.75 or 1.8 inches.
(7) Text shall be justified at the left margin and not justified at the right margin.
(8) Text shall contain up to 62 characters per line, excluding line numbers and time stamping, with each line containing as many words as will fit within 62 characters. Characters include blank spaces.
(9) Colloquy, new paragraphs, question (Q.) and answer (A.) symbols, and parentheticals shall begin five spaces from the left text margin, and subsequent text shall return to the left text margin. (10) Speakers shall be identified in colloquy in all capitals, followed by a colon, followed by two spaces.
(11) In colloquy, the letter “Q” followed by a period, shall follow the colon after the speaker’s name by two spaces, and the following text shall begin two spaces from the “Q.”.
(12) In continuous question and answer, the text shall follow the “Q.” or “A.” by five spaces.
(13) Quoted material and jury instructions shall begin 10 spaces from the left text margin, and subsequent text shall be indented five spaces from both
the left and right margins.
(14) Transcripts shall not include a box or border around the text.

SEC. 3. Section 69951 of the Government Code is amended to read:

69951. For transcription, in civil cases, the reporter may charge The fee for transcription is an additional 50 percent for special daily copy service.
SEC. 4. Section 69954 of the Government Code is amended to read:

69954. (a) Transcripts prepared by a reporter using computer assistance and delivered on a medium other than paper shall be compensated at the same rate set for paper transcripts, except the
reporter may also charge an additional fee not to exceed the cost of the medium or any copies thereof.
(b) The fee for a second copy of a transcript on appeal in computer-readable format ordered by or on behalf of a requesting party within 120 days of the filing or delivery of the original transcript shall be compensated at one-third the rate set forth for a second copy of a transcript as provided in Section 69950. A reporter may also charge an additional fee not to exceed the cost of the medium or any copies thereof.

(c) The fee for a computer-readable transcript shall be paid by the requesting court, party, or person, unless the computer-readable transcript is requested by a party in lieu of a paper transcript
required to be delivered to that party by the rules of court. In that event, the fee shall be chargeable as statute or rule provides for the paper transcript.

(d) Any court, party, or person who has purchased a transcript may, without paying a further fee to the reporter, reproduce a copy or portion thereof as an exhibit pursuant to court order or rule, or
for internal use, but shall not otherwise provide , loan, or sell a copy or copies to any other party or person.

“GC 27360.5. As used in this code, the word “folio” means 100 words. Each figure, character, symbol, and initial, excluding punctuation marks, shall be regarded as a word for the purpose of computing fees by a recorder.”

Word-count software measures and counts words in a variety different ways. The usage of the specified word-count software program offered by the AOC excludes hyphenated words, numbers, and other characters, in effect counting fewer words than actually exist on a page. All CAT programs count words or folios differently. This GC statute declares the manner in which words will be counted to constitute a folio – it always has.

Uniformity in payment cannot be achieved using various word-count systems, and the answer is not in a standardized word-count software either and brings up payment issues regarding importing and exporting and additional work required. The transcript format remains the lurking evil. Until the format is standardized and a statewide page rate established, all counties will continue to pay at various rates throughout the state. Period.

It is COCRA’s firm belief that a standardized format and uniformity with a specific page rate – which is easily understood by the public, litigants, the courts, and the reporters — is the only way to restore the public’s confidence in the fact that our court system is charging them fairly and equally and also to assure reporters that they are being compensated fairly based on the work they perform.

We laid out the questions in the email below.

1. Do you calculate transcript costs using the word count or folio rate method?
2. If transcript cost is calculated using folio rate, how many folios per page?
3. How many lines per page do your reporters court use?
4. If transcript cost is calculated using word count, what percentage of savings have you realized by switching from folio rate to word count method?
5. If you switched to word count method, what was the response from court reporters? What approach did you take to implement this change? What are some lessons learned from the experience?
6. If you are using word count to calculate transcript costs, are you auditing transcript claims submitted by the reporters to verify correct calculations?
7. If you are using the word count method to calculate transcript costs, on average, how much time per claim does it take to calculate costs?
8. If you are using the word count method, what application do you use (i.e. Microsoft Word, reporter’s individual software, or other)?

Early in February COCRA started hearing a rumos that there was a task force comprised of court CEOs that was working on a plan to implement a uniform response and/or procedure regarding the word count multiplier. The rumor is starting to look more and more like truth what with the rapid spread of the word count multiplier in the past two weeks and this email being sent out to courts.

In the letter, COCRA takes a very firm position against the implementation of the word count multiplier that has spread from county to county without consulting the unions who represent official court reporters.

We encourage all official reporters who receive this letter to pass it on to your fellow officials.

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Honorable Tani Cantil-Sakauye
Chief Justice of California
Supreme Court
350 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Jody Patel
Interim Administrative Director of the Courts for California
455 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102-3688

Curt Soderland
Interim Administrative Director of the Courts for California
455 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102-3688

Dear Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Ms. Patel, Mr. Soderland:

The California Official Court Reporters Association (COCRA) is a professional association representing official reporters who work in the trial courts of California. COCRA is receiving complaints from a growing number of official reporters throughout the state that trial courts are unilaterally altering long-established, negotiated transcript rates. This unilateral action by the trial courts undercuts the trial courts’ obligation, confirmed by a recent PERB decision, to meet and confer with official reporters about transcript rates.

Further, the courts’ action forces transcript compensation “down” to levels which are unsustainable for official reporters due to a 22-year freeze on transcript rates and ongoing costs associated with realtime technology. COCRA therefore requests the AOC to direct the trial courts to cease their unilateral action with respect to transcript rates and to restore the formerly agreed-upon rates.

Statewide transcript compensation reform by way of converting folio-based rates to a standard page-based page rate is far overdue. In 2003, The Reporting of the Record Task Force (RRTF) found that a standardized transcript format and costs would improve the public’s confidence in the courts.

In 2006, COCRA introduced AB 2305 in compliance with the RRTF’s recommendations. AB 2305 also provided a reasonable adjustment to transcript rates which had been unchanged for 15 years. AB 2305 was defeated by a “fee moratorium” between the courts and the bar that was in effect at the time. Today, transcript rates have remained unchanged for 22 years and the same folio-page rates continue in existence statewide.

The RRTF recognized that any changes to these folio rates would, at a minimum, “require formal negotiations.” To our knowledge, no formal negotiations have been initiated or called for by either the AOC or the Judicial Council. However, in 2010, the Marin County Superior Court unilaterally selected and imposed a different word-count multiplier on its official reporters. The Santa Cruz County Superior Court, after a 2010 audit requiring the court to modify its generic vendor reimbursement voucher to an appropriate format for transcript billing, tried to replicate the actions of Marin County Superior Court; however, the court was stopped by grievance and a PERB charge filed by SEIU, representing the Santa Cruz official reporters. It is our understanding that the PERB has ruled in favor of the union stating that the court failed to meet and confer on changing transcript rates. Alameda County Superior Court has most recently indicated a desire to unilaterally alter transcript rates.

COCRA acknowledges the budget challenges faced by the courts and maintains that the best way to address transcript compensation is through the reforms recommended by the RRTF. As an aside, according to court financial records, the costs to the courts for transcripts have been in decline since 1990.

Nevertheless, if it is the intention of other superior courts to negate reform, then COCRA requests that the AOC and/or the Judicial Council direct the courts to cease their unilateral action and meet and confer with their official reporters about modifying long-standing, previously negotiated transcript rates.

I respectfully request to be informed of any action taken in response to COCRA’s request, and a continuing dialogue in that regard.

Sincerely,
Gordon F Aiavao
President, California Official Court Reporters Assn.
1215 K Street, Suite 2290
Sacramento, CA 95814

cc:

Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE)
Barry Broad, Shane Gusman of Broad & Gusman Llp (COCRA Legislative Advocates)

Below is a portion taken from the notice explaining when and how the word count would be implemented.

“…court administration has decided to discontinue use of the folio standard to charge parties and the court for transcripts. Instead, effective May 1, 2012, the court’s new method for calculating the amount court reporters may charge for transcripts will be the “word count” method, which is consistent with the requirements of Government Code section 69950. As part of the transcript preparation, each reporter must include on the reporter certification page the number of words contained in the transcript.

This new method will be used for all transcripts requested by any party or the court after May 1, 2012, including criminal, civil, family law, juvenile, and probate. The court will apply this new method prospectively for transcripts requested or ordered on or after May 1, 2012. However, as independent contractors for the express purpose of preparing transcripts, court reporters should use their own best judgment as to whether to provide recalculations of transcript costs for parties making such requests with respect to previously ordered transcripts. In addition, if a reporter is preparing a lengthy transcript over time and has already billed a party for a portion of a transcript at the folio standard rate, the new rate should be used at least for the portion of the transcript that is prepared on or after May 1, 2012 although court reporters may want to consider recalculating the entire cost of the transcript to reflect the new word count method.”

COCRA will be advising our members in Fresno to refer to the PERB’s decision in Santa Cruz regarding the implementation of word count  which stated that the court could not implement the word count multiplier without first consulting with the unions representing the affected official reporters.

We encourage all official reporters, especially those represented by SEIU, to contact their SEIU reps about this issue.

COCRA is currently evaluating what steps we can take on a legislative and local level to address this issue.   We will keep COCRA members and all California official reporters informed of any action we take that touches on this subject.

SFOCRA Vice President Deborah Neville issued the following statement about the donation.

“We make this donation to COCRA confident in the knowledge that COCRA, an association created over a decade ago “For Officials, By Officials,” truly represents the official reporters in California’s superior courts who work incredibly hard every day to provide a true, accurate, and impartial verbatim record of court proceedings. SFOCRA believes in COCRA because COCRA believes in official reporters.”

COCRA thanks the official reporter members of SFOCRA who made this donation even after having suffered greatly in the past six months with layoffs and removal of official reporters from civil.  COCRA will continue to work tirelessly on their behalf and on behalf of all official reporters in California.

In January of 2011, Santa Cruz Superior Court (SCSC) informed the official reporters in that court that they would not follow the long practiced procedure of using folio rates to calculate payment for transcripts. Instead, SCSC informed its reporters that they would be calculating payment with a word count multiplier. The word count multiplier is a system that was first implemented in Marin Superior Court in which official reporters are compensated for every 100 words instead of folios per page.

SEIU Local 521 requested to meet with the court in order to negotiate the implementation of the word count. The request to meet and confer was denied by the court.

In its filing Santa Cruz stated that the SCSC “failed and refused to meet and confer in good faith in violation of Government Code section 71634.2 and committed an unfair practice under Government Code section 71639.1 (c) and PERB Regulation 32606 (c).”

The PERB filing also found that in refusing to meet with the union, the court “interfered with the rights of bargaining unit employees to be represented by Charging Party in violation of Government Code sections 71631 and 71635.1 and is an unfair practice under Government Code section 71639.1 (c) and PERB Regulation 32606 (a).”

There is no word yet as to when SCSC plans to meet with the official reporters in Santa Cruz to discuss the implementation of the word count multiplier, but COCRA will definitely provide any updates on this issue if any arise.

However, according to an article in the March 5th online edition of the Ventura County Star, the proposed layoffs and courthouse closure are dependent on Governor Brown’s May budget revise.

Ventura County Superior Court Presiding Judge Vincent O’Neill said he regrets the inconvenience and hopes the public understands why plans to close the East County Courthouse are necessary.

“We are still hoping that we won’t have to,” the judge said.

O’Neill said Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget will be revised in May, and he is hopeful there will be some budget relief between now and then. However, the judge said courts throughout the state have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

The budget must be approved by June 15, O’Neill said.

“There is a lot of lobbying going on like crazy” in Sacramento, he said.

COCRA has not received a firm account of whether court reporters will be affected by the layoffs and COCRA will be providing further updated information as we receive it.