LAKE COUNTY — Two county supervisors volunteered Tuesday to be involved in negotiations with the state regarding the transfer of the county”s two trial court facilities to state property.
The negotiations arose out of the last phase of implementing the Trial Court Funding Act of 1997, which governs the funding and operation of trial courts throughout California.
The first phases involved shifting court staff from employment with the county to state employment in 2001, according to chief deputy administrative officer Matthew Perry”s memo to the board.
“The county basically concedes equity interest ? this is probably the toughest pill to swallow in this whole arrangement,” Perry said. “The county concedes interest in the fourth floor of the courthouse, basically the state says, it”s ours and when and if we move out, and if you want to use it you have to buy it back from us, or rent it.”
“Although the county”s taxpayers paid for this building already,” chief administrative officer Kelly Cox added.
When asked by Supervisor Denise Rushing why the county would want to do that, Cox said, “The only reason why you would do it is it gets us out from under the obligation of providing future court facilities. If state approves adding a new judge to Lake County, we”re going to have to have a new courtroom space, and under the current law right now the county would have to provide that space. It”s good to get out from under that cloud of having to provide space for the courts but it really is a tough pill to swallow.”
“They want the fourth floor, but they don”t want to buy it, and when they leave it, they want us to buy it back, but we already own it,” chairman Ed Robey said.
Perry reported to the Lake County Board of Supervisors at its Jan. 22 meeting that the county would pay annual fee of $106,000 to the state for maintenance.
With the state paying a portion of the utilities, Perry estimated that the county would pay about $56,000 annually to the state.
“It seems to me that with the fact that the courts are becoming more of a state agency, independent of the county, and the fact that their security issues are so much higher than the rest of the county offices, it seems to me that they really aught to build their own building for the courts and get it over with,” Robey said.
“They need to,” Cox said. “But if we don”t approve the transfer, they”re not as likely to do that, believe it or not. If we don”t do the transfer, they won”t build a new facility and the county is obligated to build any facilities they need. If we approve the transfer, that puts them on the list for state funding to build a new facility, so that”s another incentive to do this, as crazy as it sounds. There”s no logic, but that”s just the rules.”
“In negotiations, we would want our taxpayers to be made whole or have it be as fair as possible,” Rushing said. “My sense is that there was an obligation we had that has a cost to it, … and that obligation was to provide this space, and now we”re dealing with the cost of that obligation.”
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
