The Budget Committee's Economy Subcommittee was established by the Judicial Conference in 1993. Its co-chairs are Judges Owen M. Panner (D. Or.) and William G. Young (D. Mass.) Panner was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in 1980 and took senior status in 1992. Young was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 1985.
Q: What is the role and what are the responsibilities of the Economy subcommittee?
A: Young: The subcommittee is very small. It includes Judge Panner, Magistrate Judge John Roper from Mississippi, and me. As a subcommittee, I think we have three responsibilities. The first and foremost is to perform within the Judiciary the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)-type function. The subcommittee makes sure that the Judiciary's budget presentation is consistent with OMB standards because the OMB approach to budget presentation is familiar to Congress.
The second role is to initiate and pursue a variety of studies within the Judiciary about ways we can economize, while continuing to provide a consistently high quality of justice. The staff of the Economy Subcommittee is very small, so in discharging that role, it is vital to have the cooperation of the various program committees and their staffs. All have done a superb job in very responsibly addressing the issues. There are some 28 different studies underway or recently completed addressing a variety of issues affecting efficiency.
The third major area and function of the Economy Subcommittee is to be an honest broker of ideas relative to economy and efficiency in light of the overarching concern of doing justice for every litigant who comes into the court. To that end, the subcommittee has established a database in which we have recorded virtually every idea that people have suggested. We try to see that they are communicated to the program committees who can best evaluate them. It is important to understand that the Economy Subcommittee makes no policy recommendations. The Budget Committee, of which we are a part, makes policy recommendations. The subcommittee asks probing questions-those that Congress will ask us-and tries to obtain and evaluate the answers.
Panner: The subcommittee renders direct assistance to the program committees, as Judge Young said, without suggesting any substantive changes. Our goal is to assist them in understanding the budget process and give the best possible ideas we can about economies so they can determine what decisions to make and how to submit their budgets to the Budget Committee.
Q: The subcommittee is one of the newest of the Judicial Conference subcommittees. What was the impetus for its formation?
A: Panner: Very simply, the Judiciary realized the difficult economic times in the country, as far as budgeting goes. I think the Judiciary has a marvelous record of economizing and accomplishing a great deal for the amount of money that we spend. But when the budget nationally got so tight, the Judiciary realized that it was our responsibility to do everything we possibly could to economize further. Of course, it got a little impetus from Congress because they were under such extreme pressure, too. Also, we found ourselves having to add to our budget each year in order to do our job because our workload was increasing tremendously. With the increasing caseload, the additional pressure on judges, and the pressure from Congress to hold the budget down, it was necessary to take this step.
Q: Why has Congress shown a strong interest in the formation of the subcommittee?
A: Panner: Because Congress is under extreme budgetary pressure and because its members understand the OMB function of budgeting, they were delighted when we came up with this idea and embraced it immediately. We can't match OMB's function exactly, but we can attempt to conform our process more generally to it.
Young: Our whole success with the Congress depends upon the credibility of our budget responsibility. The record under Budget Committee chairs Chief Judges Charles Clark and Richard Arnold has been one of absolute fidelity to telling the Congress the truth in a timely manner. We support that. Our function is to ensure that our spending proposals are justified and that we are truly responsible with respect to the public's money.
Q: How does the Subcommittee work with the other Judicial Conference committees and subcommittees?
A: Young: Without any equivocation, the spirit of cooperation and the sense of fiduciary duty to responsibly utilize the public's money goes across the entire Judiciary. Everyone with whom we have worked-judges and support staff, both at the AO level and in the various circuits and districts-are genuinely trying to see how we can maintain the highest quality of justice, and at the same time, make appropriated funds go as far as possible.
As a subcommittee, we act as liaison with the various program committees. Each of us takes a few committees as a liaison responsibility. As Judge Panner explained, we try to assist them in their budget presentations. We try to see that major ideas for economizing are analyzed and prepared in a responsible fashion. Then we try to maintain this database of ideas and act as an honest broker to make sure that the ideas get to the people who need to hear about and evaluate them.
Unlike OMB, which makes policy, in the Judiciary policy decisions are made by the Judicial Conference, with recommendations by the full Budget Committee, of which we are three members. The committee establishes the Judiciary's budget subject to review by the Judicial Conference. The OMB's function also is to establish and maintain the spending plans for appropriated funds. In our governance structure, that is the function of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference, not the Budget Committee.
Q: How does the subcommittee impact the budget process?
A: Panner: The way the process worked in the past, the Budget Committee met with the program committee chairs in July to formulate a proposed budget to be presented to the Judicial Conference for the next fiscal year. After the program chairs prepared their budgets, the first part of the July proceedings involved the program chairs sitting down and beating out a budget that the Budget Committee thought would be acceptable to Congress. That was a difficult process for the program chairs, especially for those comparatively new chairpersons who hadn't been in the process before.
That process has changed. Now the Economy Subcommittee meets with the program chairs and helps them with the issues as they submit their budgets. At the July meeting, all the program chairs sit down with the Budget Committee, and they go through each of the budgets. The program chairs get a chance to make their presentations, not just to the Budget Committee, but in front of the other program chairs. It is a difficult process, and there are areas where the program chairs must be flexible. But if they can understand the entire picture, they get a better perspective. The Judicial Conference and its Budget Committee ultimately make the decisions. Through the work of the subcommittee, they're probably better informed than they were in the past. I think there's the general feeling among the program committee chairs and the members of the Budget Committee that the process is a little more efficient and effective.
Young: I have an anecdotal point to add. In doing this work, you learn a great deal about the Judiciary. For example, we see that the criminal dockets of the courts are growing. We're finding out that the average time to try the average criminal case is close to doubling what it was only a few years ago. This has happened even though, nationwide, we've kept our time from filing the complaint to disposition relatively constant. That's an extraordinary change, and it alters the way you make your work-load calculations and the implications of that workload. That's the kind of thing we're trying to grapple with as a subcommittee.
Q: What issues are in the forefront for the Economy Subcommittee?
A: Panner: It seems to me the key issues are the number of support personnel it takes to operate the Judiciary. We're operating now at well under the 100 percent formula. Percentages vary in the mid-80s percent of what we should have. The goal of the program committees, working with the Budget Committee, is to find the most efficient way the Judiciary can function with its personnel. We are studying, as Judge Young mentioned, all sorts of ideas and rewards for ideas. We're trying to rate the efficiencies of various courts in all different manners to make it easier for the clerks' offices, for example, or probation offices to function efficiently with the least personnel. We do not plan to cut them below what it takes to do the job. We're not going to place the Judiciary in a position in which it can't function. By statute there are jobs the courts must do and which cannot be delegated. But we need to function in the best possible way.
One of the critical issues that has come before us is the payments for defense counsel. Are federal defender organizations the most efficient way to do it? Are panel attorneys? Incidental to all that is the evaluation of the individual cost to represent defendants in criminal cases. While the government may spend years investigating before they bring an indictment and have the assistance of all kinds of experts and federal agencies, it's the defense lawyer who has to take up the case for the defendant. The evaluation of whether that defense lawyer is using hours, time, and experts most efficiently is extremely difficult. We're studying all of those issues and trying to come up with some answers. Those, I think, are among the key issues.
Young: I can think of three additional areas. Our Committee on Security, Space and Facilities has established standards systemwide for the security of federal courthouses, and we are very interested in seeing those standards implemented. Working with that committee, we also are trying to establish the most accurate system for evaluating our space needs, both at present and as the courts grow or contract, so we're not holding onto space we're not using and likewise that we have the space we need, when we need it, to serve the public.
In the automation area, we are engaged in a significant study relevant to our legal research materials, their mix, how they interface, what we need now, and what we will need in the future.
We constantly are trying to upgrade our financial management tools, so we can give accurate predictions to the Judiciary's program managers about the funds that will be available and used to discharge our function, and also so we can report to Congress exactly how funds are being spent.
Q: Do you see the subcommittee's role or direction changing over time? Will there ever be a time when you see the subcommittee's work completed?
A: Young: It seems to me that for the foreseeable future it will be vital to the credibility of the Third Branch, in working with Congress, that we have our own internal mechanisms to evaluate the use of the funds appropriated for the judicial function. I feel very strongly-and I know Judges Panner and Roper do, too-that the goal of the subcommittee is not simply to economize here and there. We also serve as a basis for sound advocacy with Congress and with the public in respect to what is necessary to discharge the judicial function. We help to identify and support those things which are vital to giving people justice through the end of the second millennium.
Panner: I might add that we are still quite a new subcommittee, and I think that the Budget Committee and the members of the Conference will continue to watch us and look for adjustments. We can always improve. At this minute though, I think the members of the Budget Committee are satisfied that we are doing the best job that we can do.