State’s bloated court bureaucracy has a San Francisco subtext

Only one thing better than to release news on a Friday if you don’t want as many people to notice it, and that’s to do it on the Friday before a long holiday weekend. This time it’s a report by an 11-judge panel proclaiming the state’s judicial bureaucracy as bloated and “dysfunctional.” It was released over the weekend by California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (pictured).

Add: Singled out is the San Francisco-based Administrative Office of the Courts, which, despite draconian cutbacks overall that have nearly paralyzed the system, has seen the ranks of its bureaucrats grow from 430 employees in 2002 to 1,100 last year. Hundreds of them earn six figure salaries. One of its divisions, its 75-member legal team, has a staff attorney allowed to telecommute from Switzerland.

More: Among the panel’s recommendations: cut the AOC to no more than 700 employees and move it from its $11 million a year digs in San Francisco to smaller quarters in Sacramento. Mercury News