2017 State of the Court

WAFM, Judicial and Staff Needs

In 2005, the Judicial Council of California (JCC) approved the Resource Allocation Study (RAS) model, which uses workload measures to determine the amount of nonjudicial trial court staff need. In 2013, the JCC approved a new funding model called the Workload-based Allocation and Funding Methodology (WAFM), that uses the RAS model as the basis for its funding. Under WAFM, funding is

$30.00

$25.00

$20.00

New Funding & Historical Reallocation Tiered Rollout

$15.00

Millions

$10.00

$5.00

$0.00

based on a court’s workload and filing counts averaged over a three year period. Using a phased-in approach, WAFM is designed to allocate funding over a five year period. As a result, the court has benefitted from this workload-based funding model (as shown in the graph above). Even though funding has increased, it is still insufficient to support the workload-driven need of our court.

1,116

134.1

1,058

86

Funded Positions

Staff Position Need

Funded Judicial Positions

Judicial Needed

To support the workload of our court, we still need 48.1 judicial positions and an estimated 58 nonjudicial trial court positions per the RAS model.

State of the Court Report 13