Budget Meeting at the State Capitol How the Budget Cuts Are Impacting Litigants' Access to Justice

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 36 No. 2
• Publication year: 2014
• Author: Diane Fetzer*
• topic: Family Law

BUDGET MEETING AT THE STATE CAPITOL How the Budget Cuts are Impacting Litigants' Access to Justice

Diane Fetzer*

On March 11, 2014, a Senate Judiciary Committee Information Meeting was held in Sacramento at the State Capitol. The topic of this meeting was Family Law Courts: Budget Cutbacks and Access to Justice. Those in attendance, other than the legislators, were the Honorable Jerilyn Borack, the Honorable Kimberly Nystrom-Geist, the Honorable James M. Mize, the Honorable Scott M. Gordon, Dianne M. Fetzer (Advisor to the Family Law Executive Committee), Diane Bras (Placer County Superior Court), Billie-Jean Lee (Bay Area Legal Aid), and Chris Chiristman (Placer County Public Law Library).

Senator Leno indicated that California has a surplus of funds this year and hoped to allocate some of these funds to the CA Judiciary Branch. He stated this with a caveat: as the Governor also indicated, he wanted to direct the funds primarily to pay off debt and to shift some funds to CalPERs and CalSTRS retirement plans. The purpose of this meeting was to provide input to legislators about the impact of...