Comments on the Final Report and Recommendations of the Iowa Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Judicial Branch Redistricting *

by Mark A. Edelman, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Iowa State University

January 1, 2003

In general, I conclude that the Advisory Committee accomplished a great deal of work within its 3 months to complete the job. The Advisory Committee's work, recommendations, and suggested principles represent a positive contribution toward potentially illuminating the impacts of population trends on demand for court services in Iowa and the potential for a mismatch in the supply and demand for court services.

In addition, the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) has generally developed a solid reputation for conducting data oriented analyses regarding court administration issues and policy. In this case, the NCSC methods were used as the basis for Advisory Committee Recommendations.

After reviewing the Advisory Committee's Final Report and other background information available, I have identified 2 potential methodology and assessment issues which may deserve additional thought and consideration.

I. Are differences in rural and urban judicial production possibilities accounted for in the NCSC methodology?

It is not clear whether the NCSC methods accounted for the rural-urban differences in court service production functions. The methods used to calculate judgeship supply and demand presumes that a judge should spend equal time on cases of similar type in all courtrooms, regardless of the potential differences in courtroom justice production conditions. Equalization of Judge time across districts does not necessarily mean equalization of judicial services or availability of court services. Simply surveying Judges and the amount of time they spend on each type of case, does not necessarily account for the potential differences that may exist in court service production possibilities between rural and urban courtroom settings.

For example in one county sited in a recent court study (2001), it was noted that Judges and Court Clerk staff are called on to perform Court Reporter functions during Court Service days in some rural counties. This occurs in part because a Court Reporter may not be assigned to some rural counties. If not, this would potentially skew the time reported by judges serving rural areas in the NCSC study.

In another example, a District Judge suggested that judge preparation time could be reduced by reducing the number of judges that preside over any one case. In addition, he suggested there were greater opportunities to accomplish this goal in larger urban counties where more judges exist. This suggests that urban courtrooms may have greater opportunities to specialize and achieve efficiency using a lower level of judicial inputs per case.

In a third example, one county reported that judges received increased calls from attorneys and other court participants during hours in which the Court Clerk's office was closed to the public in rural counties. It is unclear whether NCSC methodology accurately corrects for this in the calculations of Judgeship demand and supply.

Finally, survey methodologies often presume that respondents uniformly interpret the questions. The NCSC study appears to presume that judges across districts uniformly interpret how to allocate their time between what is spent on cases of each type regarding preparation, adjudication, administration, transportation, etc. During this limited review, it is unclear whether a process was implemented to independently verify consistent interpretation across rural and urban courtroom settings. If no verification process was implemented, there would be no evidence either in support or opposition to any hypotheses regarding the potential for respondent interpretation bias to occur across rural and urban settings.

II. Are the Full Costs and/or Savings from Restructuring Identified?

From the information reviewed, it appears that the Advisory Committee did not consider the Final Report to be a feasibility analysis of the redistricting plans submitted. The implication is that the Advisory Committee's efforts developed 3 plans from which a more detailed set of feasibility assessments would be conducted. Furthermore, no assessment of transition costs or full systemic impacts, costs, or savings has been accomplished to this point. To their credit, the Advisory Committee attempted to seek broad input and operated under the open meetings law and made extra efforts to communicate its intended purpose. However, the Advisory Committee was also clear about not "usurping" directives from the Supreme Court or Legislative authority with regard to assessment and decisions over Judicial Districts.

Institutional restructuring, whether accomplished in the private or public sector, typically involves four elements (1) assessment of the current operational configuration (2) a feasibility study process (which apparent has only been partially completed), (3) a transition phase during which an implementation process occurs, and (4) attainment of a new operational configuration for which an enhanced level of performance, efficiency, and/or cost savings are potentially achieved.

Few follow-up studies of actual performance are ever done because decision-makers are not typically interested in learning whether or not feasibility study predictions of savings or enhanced performance have actually been achieved. In addition, once the decision is made to restructure, follow-up analyses of performance may highlight the inadequacies of the original feasibility study processes. In some cases, feasibility study costs, transition implementation costs, and full systemic incremental costs/savings are not fully considered by the feasibility study process. These inadequacies may very well be present in regards to the methods used in the Judicial District restructuring efforts accomplished to date.

Feasibility Study Process Costs are extraordinary costs that occur from date of the initial decision to conduct a feasibility study of restructuring options until the final decision is made by policymakers regarding whether to implement or abandon the restructuring plans that are developed. Feasibility study costs include the cost of the study, external consultants hired to conduct the study, as well as the time and resource expense used by staff, policymakers, and impacted client groups in attempting to understand the study process, alternatives under consideration, assessment of probable consequences, and efforts to influence the outcomes. Suffice it to say that local school consolidations and/or city-county consolidations can command significant amounts of time from key policymakers and interest groups such that other priority issues can be crowded off the public agenda for the period of the feasibility assessment--which can last from six months to two years or longer. While an accounting of some of these costs may exist, the reviewer did not observe it in this preliminary review.

Transition Costs are extraordinary costs that occur from the date of the final decision to implement a restructuring plan until the transition plan is fully implemented and the new structure is in full operation. Transition costs can include a variety of expenses and/or potentially generate some savings. For example the transition may involve extra salary savings, or severance costs, extra hiring and training costs, employee moving costs, contracting costs, and/or extra personnel for planning and implementing transition logistics and resolving transition issues. Extra moving, space rental, and/or building ownership costs are typically involved when personnel are sorting, disposing, packing, moving, unpacking, and organizing files, equipment, documents and records into new offices. Some savings may be generated by disposal of surplus equipment, furniture, or buildings. Extra costs may be involved in harmonizing information systems and consolidating documents that may have used different formats from several locations.

While an accounting of some of these costs may exist, the reviewer did not observe it in this preliminary review.

In fact, the Advisory Committee appeared to encourage lawmakers to consider a longer transition period that would provide legislative authority to transfer Judgeship positions across districts as retirements occur. See Section D items 3 and 4.

Full Systemic Incremental Costs/Savings involve assessments in external as well as the internal changes in performance and costs/savings in a system, comparing the preexisting structure to the proposed new structure. This typically includes assessments of the internal impacts (costs, savings, and productivity, output) generated by moving from the old to new system. However, also included are assessments of the impacts on costs and performance of those who use the system and other agencies that must participate in court services in order for the system to deliver the service. For example, one dated study from the mid-1990s suggested that over half of the costs for delivery of court services in California came from agency budgets other than the state court budget. In two previous studies, it was noted that the Iowa Judicial Branch typically only considers rough internal cost/savings impacts on the court system budget, without considering the impacts and adjustments required of agency budgets and client groups who participate in the delivery of court services.

Concluding Observations

Previous research suggests that voluntary incentives may often create lower transitional costs in comparison to mandatory consolidation approaches that involve forcing the moves of personnel and realignment of administrative channels of communication among the participants in a bureaucracy. Typically during the latter type of transition period, personnel performance declines and costs increase during the transition period because the previously learned channels of communication and authority are disrupted. The costs continue until the participants in the new structure configuration develop new communication networks and learn how to maximize the use of the resources at their disposal in their new system. This is perhaps why, some of the suggestions proposed by the Advisory Committee seem to support incremental change by re-balancing positions across district lines in contrast to redrawing the district lines.

Some of the notions such as attempting to use bottom up characteristics regarding utilization of existing district lines, transportation routes, natural commuting areas, avoidance of district panhandles, and matching surplus and deficit areas would seem to have some appeal from efficiency and equity perspectives, under the assumption that all counties have similar production functions for judicial services. However before such a presumption is accepted as fact and used in the implementation of resource allocation formulas, perhaps there is a need for further study by the NCSC or others as to whether or not this assumed hypothesis can be validated by a more detailed set of cross-sectional comparisons regarding the production context in which justice is dispensed.

Finally, an earlier study concluded that mandatory sentences and the "get tough" on crime policies of the early 1990s resulted in bottlenecks in the courtrooms, prisons, and law enforcement capacity. That study recommended that increasing the number of judge positions in the districts where the bottleneck occurred was less disruptive of current operating practices than the consolidation plans presented. In this case, some thought might be given to raising court fines and fees to add a market oriented flavor of accountability to generate revenues for extra court service personnel in resource short Judicial Districts.

The assumption of average Judgeship time allocation in a formula may mean that judges are provided with an incentive not to allow extra time on cases that normally would require extra effort if they are not accounted for in the NCSC variables. Over time if such cases are avoided or short changed and if they represent a significant number of cases, the averages calculated from time and motion studies for the distribution formula may also decline.

*Comments requested by Donald A. Beneke, on behalf of several County Bar Associations.