<DOC> [107th Congress House Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:85723.wais] THE PERFORMANCE OF THE COURT OF APPEALS AND THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ JUNE 5, 2002 __________ Serial No. 107-175 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house http://www.house.gov/reform ______ 85-723 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 2003 ____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800 Fax: (202) 512ÿ092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland BOB BARR, Georgia DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio DAN MILLER, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois DOUG OSE, California DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois RON LEWIS, Kentucky JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JIM TURNER, Texas TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine DAVE WELDON, Florida JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia ------ JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma (Independent) Kevin Binger, Staff Director Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director Subcommittee on the District of Columbia CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland, Chairman TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia, DC CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut DIANE E. WATSON, California STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts Ex Officio DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California Russell Smith, Staff Director Heea Vazirani-Fales, Counsel Matthew Batt, Legislative Assistant/Clerk Jon Bouker, Minority Counsel C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on June 5, 2002..................................... 1 Statement of: Ashby, Cornelia M., Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues, General Accounting Office; Annice M. Wagner, chief judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals; Rufus G. King III, chief judge, District of Columbia Superior Court; and Lee F. Satterfield, presiding judge, District of Columbia Family Court.......................... 11 Harlan, Stephen, chairman of the board, Council for Court Excellence; Dr. Olivia Golden, director, District of Columbia Child and Family Services; and Arabella Teal, principal deputy corporation counsel, District of Columbia. 77 Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: Ashby, Cornelia M., Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues, General Accounting Office, prepared statement of............................................... 13 Golden, Dr. Olivia, director, District of Columbia Child and Family Services, prepared statement of..................... 92 Harlan, Stephen, chairman of the board, Council for Court Excellence, prepared statement of.......................... 82 King, Rufus G., III, chief judge, District of Columbia Superior Court, prepared statement of...................... 52 Morella, Hon. Constance A., a Representative in Congress from the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 3 Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Delegate in Congress from the District of Columbia, prepared statement of................ 7 Satterfield, Lee F., presiding judge, District of Columbia Family Court, prepared statement of........................ 59 Teal, Arabella, principal deputy corporation counsel, District of Columbia, prepared statement of................ 108 Wagner, Annice M., chief judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, prepared statement of............................. 41 THE PERFORMANCE OF THE COURT OF APPEALS AND THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ---------- WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2002 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, Committee on Government Reform, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:52 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Constance A. Morella, (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Morella, Norton and DeLay. Staff present: Russell Smith, staff director; Heea Vazirani-Fales, counsel; Robert White, communications director; Matthew Batt, legislative assistant/clerk; Shalley Kim, staff assistant; Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk; and Jon Bouker, minority counsel. Mrs. Morella. Thank you all for being here today. Just about a year ago, many of us were gathered here, in this same room, to discuss a proposal to reform the family division of the District of Columbia Superior Court. After much debate and discussion and negotiation, Congress passed, and the President signed, the District of Columbia Family Court Act of 2001, the first major overhaul of the District Family Court System in three decades. Today, we are here to not only get a status report on how the D.C. Family Court Act is being implemented, but also to take a broader look at the entire District of Columbia Court System. As part of the 1997 Revitalization Act, the Federal Government assumed responsibility for the city's Court of Appeals and its Superior Court, which encompasses the new Family Court, the criminal and civil divisions and other operations. There are four general areas we are going to examine in depth today. One, as I mentioned, is the progress of the Family Court Implementation Plan. From all accounts, court officials have worked diligently and collaboratively on developing this plan, and their efforts should be applauded. The General Accounting Office, however, raised several questions regarding this plan, noting that it does not include some elements required by law--such as getting the Judicial Nominating Commission involved in recruiting judges and a detailed determination of how many judicial staff and magistrates should be hired. The second is the development and application of the Integrated Justice Information System. This system essentially allows users to move more easily to track cases and manage information. It is critically important for the court system to interact with so many Federal and local agencies. It is especially important to the success of the new Family Court. Third, we want to look at the Court's development of a strategic plan. How is the court system planning to measure its own performance and how is it going to determine how well resources are being used to ensure that citizens receive adequate access to justice, that proceedings are both fair and swift, that the court system is independent and accountable, and that the public has trust and confidence in the courts. These are the questions we pose. Finally, we will discuss the Victims of Violent Crime Compensation Fund. As of September 2000, there was an $18 million balance to this fund, which was to go toward compensation payments to crime victims to make victims aware of the program. For too long, this money has been there unused. I would like to have the subcommittee get a status report on the District's plan to distribute it. [The prepared statement of Hon. Constance A. Morella follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.002 Mrs. Morella. I would now like to recognize the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee. Ms. Norton. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Chair for organizing this oversight hearing on the District Superior Court and its recently reformed Family Court and her work on the District of Columbia Family Court Act. May I say in advance that there is an important hearing of another one of my subcommittees taking place on the floor unfortunately and I am have to go back and forth because a matter involving the District of Columbia may well come up at that hearing. I apologize but I will be back if I have to leave. I particularly appreciate that today we also will hear from the Director of the Child and Family Services Agency which is central to the District's most vulnerable children and families whether or not under the court's jurisdiction. Both the Superior Court and the new Family Court, which is part of the Superior Court, recently have gone through a rocky period. The Superior Court encountered budget shortfalls, used funds intended for criminal defense of indigents for operations, experienced a lengthy period in which regular staff increases were suspended, and was subject to a critical GAO investigation and report. Oversight during this period, including several hearings was with D.C. Appropriations Subcommittees. Today's District of Columbia Subcommittee oversight hearing is especially welcome because it is the first hearing by the authorizing committee on the Superior Court since the Revitalization Act transferred Superior Court costs to the Federal Government. This District of Columbia Subcommittee hearing affords the opportunity for court leaders to discuss the post-transitional period of the Superior Court and for Congress to learn whether the problems the Court encountered have been resolved. The subcommittee is particularly interested in the status of the Court's strategic plan. Problems in the organization of the Family Division attracted the interest and concern of Congress after the death of infant Brianna Blackman while under the jurisdiction of the Court. The Court continued distributing cases to all 59 judges, a system that did not guarantee priority to the District's most troubled children. Congress, which alone, can change existing law affecting D.C. courts, believed that only statutory change could accomplish the necessary reform. I am grateful to Representative Tom DeLay who worked closely with me on the Family Court Act. Not only did Representative DeLay obtain $23 million in additional funding for the Court to assure fruitful reform, Mr. DeLay, who had strong views concerning the Court and originally desired to create a separate Family Court outside of the Superior Court, was willing to work closely with me on these and other differences. After months of working together, he and I arrived at a consensus compromise bill that was signed by President Bush this year. Representative DeLay requested the GAO report on the Family Court's 90-day transition plan that we will hear about presently. The task of transferring widely disbursed cases involving the District's most vulnerable children and families to a smoothly running new Family Court vehicle is delicate at best. We look forward to learning the details concerning this critical transition. Although the Family Court, like all component parts of the District's child welfare system, was in need of reform, the most daunting task facing the District always has been the complete reengineering of the Child and Family Services Agency. We are eager to hear what progress has been made regarding the District's efforts to reform this agency which has been transferred back to the District from receivership and to learn whether satisfactory coordination of the agency's services with the operations of the new Family Court is occurring. We appreciate the work of the Superior Court, the Family Court, the Child and Family Services Agency, and all who are working on these difficult issues and we appreciate the testimony that will be received today. Thank you, Madam Chair. [The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.004 Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Ms. Norton. I am now pleased to recognize Majority Whip, Tom DeLay, who has been instrumental in the legislation that became law and now the oversight by GAO and our discussion of the implementation. He has been indefatigable and unrelenting in his efforts to make sure that the children of the District of Columbia are well served. Congressman DeLay. Mr. DeLay. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate your remarks and thank you, Congresswoman Norton, for your remarks. It has been a pleasure working with both of you on this issue. Both of you are leaders, not just on this issue but on so many issues that affect Washington, DC, and we greatly appreciate your leadership. As the House prepares to release funding for the new Family Court, I think we need to answer a few basic questions. We need to be certain that the Court is actually organizing itself consistently with the intent of Congress. The GAO studied the transition plan and found it meets ``most, but not all,'' of the act's requirements. I am pleased that the District is attempting to ensure that the Family Court organizes itself around that most important principle, that children come first. There are several important issues that I hope this hearing addresses concerning the implementation of the Family Court legislation. To make children's needs the true priority in the Family Court requires that the judges and magistrates hearing their cases be both experienced and well trained. This Congress drafted the Family Court Act of 2001 to require expertise and experience in family law as a condition of being seated on the Court. While 12 judges have been assigned to Family Court, the GAO is still uncertain what specific experience or expertise in family law made them eligible to join the Family Court. I hope that today's testimony reveals their qualifications. We need to know why these 12 judges are on the Court, Congress must be assured that this critical reform is in place. The appointment of senior judges raises additional concerns about judicial qualifications. Clearly, we cannot accept substandard expertise or experience from senior judges but the GAO tells us that we know very little about senior judges and the actual qualifications they bring to the bench. For example, will senior judges hear abuse and neglect cases, how many part- time senior judges are currently serving on the Superior Court, will the Court randomly assign cases to senior judges? It is far from clear how the Court can protect the one family, one judge concept if senior judges hear dependency cases. The answers to these questions must be fully explored because we must determine that the children and families of the District of Columbia receive the highest quality of service. The successful implementation of the Family Court Act depends on the response not just from the Court but from the Child and Family Services Agency as well. As we all know, the purpose of the court reforms, that Congress put into place, was to ensure the District's abused and neglected children are placed in safe and permanent families as quickly as possible. Children grow best in loving families and we designed the Family Court Act to ensure that children don't languish in foster care. To achieve this goal, it is important that the Court and the agency begin obeying the mandates of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. These mandates require that the courts and the agency work together to ensure that children are always returned to safe homes. It requires that for every child. The agency thoroughly investigates the biological home and the potential foster home so that judges never release children to unsafe settings. Further, it requires that the social workers are sufficiently trained. They must write comprehensive and meticulous reports and their recommendations must be based upon all the relevant facts of that child's case. Finally, the Courts and the Agency need to work together and identify benchmarks so that Congress can evaluate their performance and measure the effectiveness of our revised system to protect Washington's children. I continue to hope that the D.C. Courts and the District's Child Welfare System reform themselves into models for the rest of the Nation. To achieve this goal, it is important that all of us work together. We must dedicate ourselves to changing the Court and the Child Protective System so that children's needs for safety, permanency and well being are the system's paramount concern. I look forward to reviewing the testimony today and I hope our witnesses will provide the detailed and definitive responses that will alleviate our concerns. Thank you for your gracious hospitality, Madam Chairwoman, and I have to apologize but duty calls me elsewhere but we will review the testimony and look forward to seeing the record. I am glad to see you, Chief Justice King, and everyone else on the panel. Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Mr. DeLay. I know you will be following very closely what is stated today and the responses to questions. Again, thanks for seeing the baby being produced, coming to fruition. We have a very prominent series of two panels. The first panel before us, we thank you for being here. Cornelia M. Ashby is the Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues, Government Accounting Office. The Honorable Annice M. Wagner is Chief Judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The Honorable Rufus G. King, III is Chief Judge, District of Columbia Superior Court. The Honorable Lee F. Satterfield is Presiding Judge, District of Columbia Family Court. Anne Wicks is Executive Officer, District of Columbia Superior Court. I would like to ask you in accordance with our procedure on the full committee and the subcommittee, if you would stand and raise your right hand for an oath. [Witnesses sworn.] Mrs. Morella. The record will show an affirmative response. Please confine your comments not more than 5 minutes. Your statements in their entirety will be placed in the record. We will start off with you, Ms. Ashby. STATEMENTS OF CORNELIA M. ASHBY, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, WORKFORCE AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; ANNICE M. WAGNER, CHIEF JUDGE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS; RUFUS G. KING III, CHIEF JUDGE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUPERIOR COURT; AND LEE F. SATTERFIELD, PRESIDING JUDGE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FAMILY COURT Ms. Ashby. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the progress made by the District of Columbia Superior Court in transitioning its Family Division to the Family Court. The D.C. Family Court Act required the Chief Judge of the Superior Court to submit to the President and the Congress a transition plan outlining the proposed operation of the Family Court. The Congress also required that we report the results of our analysis of the contents and effectiveness of the plan. Our report was issued in May 2002 and included a number of recommendations to improve the plan. My testimony today is based on our analysis of the transition plan. My remarks include preliminary observations on court initiatives to coordinate its activities with those of other District social service agencies. Our ongoing examination of these efforts will culminate in a report containing a more detailed assessment of factors to facilitate and hinder plan coordination later this year. In summary, the Superior Court had made progress in planning the transition to a Family Court but in implementing the plan, the Family Court will face challenges. Full transition to the Family Court in a timely and effective manner is dependent on obtaining and renovating appropriate space for all new Family Court personnel and integration of court activities with those of District social service agencies and development and installation of a new automated system currently planned as part of the D.C. Court's IJIS system. The Court acknowledges that its implementation plans may be slowed if appropriate space cannot be obtained in a timely manner. For example, the transition plan states that the complete transfer to the Family Court of abuse and neglect cases currently being heard by judges of other divisions of Superior Court is dependent in part on the Court's ability to provide appropriate space for additional judges and magistrate judges. However, there are a number of risks associated with the space plan. These include very aggressive implementation schedules and a design that makes the success of each part of the plan dependent on the timely completion of other parts of the plan. However, the transition plan does not include alternatives that the Court will pursue if its current plans for renovating space encounter delays or problems. The Family Court Act and court practices recommended by various national associations require the coordination of court activities with related social services. In this regard, the transition plan specifies several court initiatives, including the use of case coordinators, child protection mediators, attorney advisors and other legal representatives to support the judicial team initially comprised of the Family Court judge and a magistrate judge, but eventually to include an attorney from the Office of Corporation Counsel, guardians ad litem, parents, attorneys, and social workers. Other initiatives include interagency committees, monthly meetings involving the presiding and deputy presiding judges of the Family Court and heads of District agencies and the Family Service Center where representatives of several District social service agencies will be co-located with the Family Court. Along with these coordination initiatives come challenges. For example, the Court's transition plan states that until key agencies are sufficiently staffed and reorganized to complement the changes taking place in the Family Court, substantial improvements in the experiences of children and families served by the Court will remain a challenge. In addition, according to the Court, it takes time to obtain interagency commitments to coordinate the use of staff resources. Further, the availability of Family Service Centers depends on the timely completion of complex, interdependent space and facilities plans. The Family Court's current reliance on non-integrated automated information systems that do not fully support planned court operations such as the one family, one judge approach to case management required by the Family Court Act constrains its transition to a family court. As we reported in February 2002, a number of factors significantly increased the risk associated with acquiring and managing IJIS. In that report, we made several recommendations designed to reduce the risk associated with this effort. In April 2002, we met with D.C. Court officials to discuss the actions taken on our recommendations and found that significant actions had been initiated, that if properly implemented, will help reduce the risk. Although these are positive steps, D.C. courts still face many challenges in efforts to develop a system. Examples of these include ensuring that adequate controls and processes are in place to mitigate any adverse impacts on IJIS of interfacing with District systems of lesser quality; effectively implementing the discipline processes necessary to reduce the risk associated with IJIS to acceptable levels; ensuring that the requirements used to acquire IJIS contain the necessary specificity to reduce requirement-related defects to acceptable levels; ensuring that users receive adequate training and avoiding a schedule-driven effort. Madam Chairwoman, Congresswoman Norton, this concludes my statement. I will be happy to answer any questions either of you have. [The prepared statement of Ms. Ashby follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.005 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.008 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.011 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.012 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.013 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.014 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.015 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.016 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.017 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.018 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.019 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.020 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.021 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.022 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.023 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.024 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.025 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.026 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.027 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.028 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.029 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.030 Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Ms. Ashby. I am now pleased to recognize Judge Annice Wagner. Judge Wagner. Madam Chairwoman, Congresswoman Norton, members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss the work of the District of Columbia Courts. I appear today in my capacity as Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and as Chair of the Joint Committee on Judicial Administration, the policymaking body for the District of Columbia Courts. I have submitted written testimony and therefore, I will highlight only a few matters in this oral statement. Briefly, on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, we have continued our efforts to make management improvements and to use available resources to expedite the resolution of cases. We have been working with the Superior Court's Office of the Appeals Coordinator and the Court Reporting Division to reduce and ultimately eliminate any delays in completing the record of the trial court proceedings. We have hired an expert in the field, and procedures have been implemented which have resulted already in a 65 percent decrease in overdue transcripts. We anticipate that all overdue transcripts will be eliminated by August 2002. Originally, we had anticipated June, but we had to revise that schedule. Ultimately, this will mean that the overall time on appeal will be reduced. In the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, judicial productivity remains high. The Court's appeals disposition rate in 2001 was 110.2 percent of dispositions over filings. This has been the case for the last 3 years, that the number of dispositions have exceeded the number of cases filed for appeal. Last year, we also reduced the overall time on appeal. You will be interested to know that 2 years ago we started according full expedited treatment to appeals involving termination of parental rights and adoptions. We started training sessions for lawyers who handle these cases and developed forms to assist these lawyers to process their cases more expeditiously. We monitor the cases on a regular basis. We are close to finalizing the rule that will formalize implementation of the Family Court Act's expedition requirements for appeals. In many ways, last year marked a turning point for the District of Columbia Courts. The Court's ability to recruit and retain highly qualified staff was enhanced significantly as the fiscal year 2001 appropriation permitted the Courts' non- judicial employees to achieve pay parity with their counterparts in the Federal agencies. As a result, we have been able to assemble and retain a strong management team in the past few years which has had a significant impact on the operations of the Courts. Many of our employees have been trained at the Institute for Court Management, which is an arm of the National Center for State Courts. Our employee turnover rate has been cut in half, dropping from 10.9 percent in fiscal year 2000 to 5.2 percent in fiscal year 2001. I am also pleased to report that the District of Columbia Courts are fiscally sound, a position which results in part from the appropriation of funds by Congress which more closely meets the Courts' fiscal requirements. We appreciate the support that each of you provided to assure our sound fiscal condition. This also results from sound fiscal management of our resources and careful development and monitoring of the Courts' spending plan. The Joint Committee does this on an ongoing basis, and many improvements have resulted. Our Defender Services Account, from which we pay lawyers who provide legal representation in proceedings involving abused and neglected children and indigent defendants, is solid. Management improvements have resulted in better tracking of vouchers for lawyers, the development of information which allows us to predict better future costs for the account and we have also reduced payment time to lawyers by 54 percent. It takes about 26 days as of March 2001. We have been able to turn our attention to long term strategic planning and reengineering projects that will allow the Courts to determine priorities and seek measurable results in the coming years. We have always monitored our performance to ensure we provide excellent service to the residents of the District of Columbia. However, we are developing our strategic plan, and we are looking forward to making performance measurement systems even better than those we have today. We have enlisted in this effort the best available experts to assist us in gathering information and statistics about the Courts' work for use in planning and in setting and improving performance goals. We have appointed a Strategic Planning Leadership Counsel to work with these experts to develop long range strategic plans. The planning and performance assessment process will buildupon the nationally recognized Appellate and Trial Court Performance Standards and the Appellate Court Performance Standards. These standards identify key performance areas for appellate and trial courts and quantifiable indicators which can be used by courts to measure performance. It is our understanding that this approach is consistent with the Performance and Results Act and performance-based budgeting. The Courts have underway the first comprehensive master plan study, which is being conducted by the General Services Administration and experts in architecture and planning, to provide a blueprint for the Courts' capital projects and space utilization for the next 10 years as well as to identify the optimal location for the Family Court. This is an exciting project. A key element in this project is the restoration of the Old Courthouse at 451 Indiana Avenue for use by the Court of Appeals. The space currently occupied by the Court of Appeals will be needed to provide space for Superior Court functions. We are taking full advantage of the expertise of such agencies and organizations as the National Center for State Courts and the Institute for Court Management in all of these efforts. We will continue to work toward improving our court system in a way that supports our values, our independence and integrity, fairness and quality of service. We will continue to examine current practices to ensure that we manage our existing resources in the most prudent manner. Where structural reforms are needed to achieve additional efficiencies, we will work hard to address them. We appreciate the support that you have given to our efforts. Again, thank you for this opportunity to discuss these important achievements. We would be pleased to address any questions. [The prepared statement of Judge Wagner follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.031 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.032 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.033 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.034 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.035 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.036 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.037 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.038 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.039 Mrs. Morella. Thank you very much, Judge Wagner. I am now pleased to recognize Judge King who has been involved with this from its beginning. Judge King. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I am Rufus G. King III, Chief Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia. I would like to note that in addition to my colleagues at the table here, with me in the audience today are: Anita Josey Herring, Deputy Presiding Judge, Family Court; Juliette McKenna, one of the new Family Court magistrate judges; Ken Foor, the Court's IT director; and Anthony Rainey, our Chief Financial Officer. I thank you for the opportunity to discus the Court's productivity, effectiveness and innovation. As Chief Judge Wagner outlined, the Courts are engaged in a comprehensive strategic planning effort that will inform our practices in coming years. This will be of vital assistance to the Superior Court, as we operate one of the busiest courthouses in the country with among the highest number of case filings per capita and the highest number of cases per judge in the Nation. We have been monitoring case clearance rates, the ratio of cases filed to cases closed, more than 100 percent is good, less than 100 percent is bad. We have also been monitoring pending caseloads as measures of our progress. In the course of our strategic planning effort, we anticipate adding many more measures of our performance consistent with the trial court performance standards promulgated by the National Center for State Courts. We also plan to implement the computer capacity to report on them more capably. The Integrated Justice Information System is a crucial next step to upgrading our performance capabilities. IJIS will combine 18 different data bases within the Court so that records can be easily accessed. The first phase of IJIS will be installed in the Family Court. It will enable us to more effectively implement the principle of one judge one family and measure and report our performance to the Congress and the public. Following the submission of a detailed plan for IJIS to Congress in May 2001, the General Accounting Office reviewed the project. GAO's recommendations, which we are implementing in close coordination with that agency, have strengthened the project, helping to ensure its success. As we implement IJIS, we are also working with the Child and Family Services Agency and the Office of Corporation Counsel, as well as numerous other D.C. agencies, to ensure appropriate access to each other's systems. The high level of cooperation among the different agencies responsible for protecting child welfare promises significant improvement in the level of service offered. I would like to thank especially the Chair and ranking member of this subcommittee for your leadership. It has been critical to moving this effort toward a successful completion. Since 1999 when the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council began to focus intently on police overtime, its members, the Federal and D.C. criminal justice agencies, have been working together in unprecedented collaboration. As a result, many new initiatives are being implemented and are quickly producing results. I won't take time to detail them, but I can report that according to Chief of Police Charles Ramsey, court related police overtime costs have dropped 30 percent during the second quarter of fiscal year 2002 compared with the same period last year, notwithstanding a 10 percent increase in arrests. Again, this subcommittee's support, particularly by the Chair and ranking member, has played an important role in the Council's strengthening and its ability to achieve this success. I would like to answer specifically the question raised by Representative DeLay. He submitted a letter to us for which we are preparing the answers that are due the 15th, and the response will be timely. Essentially, as to senior judges, they would participate in Family Court duties under three circumstances. First, a few, and it is only two or three senior judges who retained neglect and abuse cases at the time they retired, will be turning those cases back to the Family Court during our transition period. During the transition period, they will hear those cases in the same manner that they would have had they remained active duty judges, but only for the period necessary to arrange their transfer back to the Family Court. Second, any particular case, would be handled consistent with those of active duty judges. If transfer back would delay permanency or would be detrimental to the interests of the child involved, the Senior Judge will be allowed to retain that case for a period to resolve a crisis or whatever would be necessary so that neither of those conditions would apply. Finally, if there were an emergency under the conditions outlined in the act, a Senior Judge might be called upon to fill in in the Family Court, but I can assure this subcommittee that no Senior Judge who was asked to substitute in that circumstance would be allowed to do so unless he or she met the criteria applicable to active judges sitting in the Family Court. For example, one of our former presiding judges of the Family Court, who has many years of experience in the Family Court, might be called upon after he takes senior status to assist in the Family Court on a short term basis. Those would be the only circumstances under which Senior Judges would sit in the Family Court. I thank you for the opportunity to discuss some of the challenges and our progress. I appreciate the interest you have shown in the Courts. I look forward to working with you to ensure that justice in the District of Columbia continues to be administered promptly, fairly and effectively. [The prepared statement of Judge King follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.040 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.041 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.042 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.043 Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Judge King. I am now pleased to recognize Judge Satterfield. Judge Satterfield. Thank you for this opportunity to update you on the progress we have made in implementing the Family Court Act of 2001. The work on that act actually started for the Court prior to the passing of the act because in December of last year, the Chief Judge and I went to a number of qualified judges to see if they were interested in serving in a new Family Court. We were happy to have ten volunteers of qualified judges to join me and Judge Josey Herring in our efforts to work the Family Court. These judges volunteered knowing the act would be passed and that they would be required to certify that they would stay in Family Court and go through ongoing training. Some of these judges had already been in the Family Division, so they were already working the cases of the Family Division. They have brought a commitment, a new energy and a spirit of cooperation and it has been a pleasure to work with them for these last 6 months under the Family Court. Immediately after the act was passed, the Court acted quickly through the Chief Judge and developed a management team of experienced court managers and judges to work on the transition plan and as you know, the plan was filed in a timely manner. We also recognized that in order to implement this act, you had to have your stakeholders involved and you had to listen to and collaborate with them to have a collaborative effort. So we developed a Family Court Implementation Committee and invited our stakeholders to participate with us in implementing the Family Court Act. During this time period, Judge Josey Herring and I, and other Family Court non-judicial staff, went out into the community and talked to child welfare professionals, juvenile justice professionals and members of the Bar and solicited their views and received their priorities regarding the Family Court. You gave us a provision in the Family Court Act that enabled us to do even more during that transition period and that was the provision that allowed the Court to hire five magistrate judges and we determined to hire five new magistrate judges during that transition period. I have to say they are well qualified and are of a pool of well qualified family law attorneys. We are waiting to hire more from that pool and we are excited by the prospects of doing that. If you will let me highlight some of the things we have done that are indicated in the transition plan. The reassignment of cases from outside the Family Court to the new magistrate judges, we have met our initial goal of transferring the initial group of cases of children back to Family Court. In meeting that goal, we also achieved another goal. We were able to reduce the number of judges who handled cases of children that are assigned to other divisions of the Court. The way we did that was by taking the entire caseload of the 17 judges outside of the Family Court and bringing their children back to Family Court. We took the entire caseload with the exception of cases they indicated were going to achieve permanency in the next few months and that resulted, I am pleased to say, in reducing the number of judges who had these cases outside of Family Court from 48 to 31. We will gradually continue to do that because we told the magistrate judges don't measure your success by reducing your caseload, measure it by achieving permanency for the children. As you do that in each case, we are going to go back outside Family Court and bring in another case during this transition period. When we bring aboard the remaining judicial officers, we are going to bring them all back. We are pleased that is going well. We have started implementation of the one judge/one family case management approach. We met with our stakeholders and came to the decision that we need to focus first on the children's cases and focus on making sure we are not delaying permanency but we are speeding up permanency as we bring in the related cases. The judges were asked to start to handle all related cases that help achieve permanency in those cases such as custody, guardianship and adoption cases. We will continue with this effort as we meet this goal of completely and fully implementing this system. One of the things we find is that you want to resolve these cases as early as you can in a non-adversarial way because once you have done that, you can start focusing on the issues of permanency. At the beginning of this year, we developed and implemented a Child Mediation Program. We are excited about this program because we are taking half of the children's cases filed this year into that program. We are having it evaluated by a nationally recognized organization so that by the end of the year, we will know whether all appropriate cases should come in that program. We will expand that program to include all appropriate cases, so that we can resolve these child cases earlier and start working toward achieving permanency. In the training area, we are planning for the first time ever, a cross training program; we have a Subcommittee on Education and training working with all of our stakeholders to develop this program which we hope to implement some time later this year or early next year. We are striving to create a court friendly environment, not just waiting rooms for the parties who come to court, but also clinics where parties who come to court not represented by counsel, cannot afford counsel, and as you mentioned, the Family Service Center, we are looking forward to having a centralized intake center for Family Court filings. We know that you want better outcomes for children and we do too. An article about reinventing government says, ``If you do not measure results, you cannot tell success from failure.'' We want to see success, we know you want to see success and we want to see better outcomes for children. So we are going to work to measure what we are doing. We are going to look to make sure children are not in foster care as long as they have been by measuring the age of our cases to see how we are doing. We are going to look at the number of cases where permanency is not achieved due to the child aging out because then we know we need to work harder to achieve permanency before that occurs. We are going to work hard to meet the ASFA time lines because as you know it was designed to create a process to tell the courts, you need to be doing more in terms of meeting time lines because at the end of meeting those time lines, there is a better outcome for children. So we will seek to meet that process, meet those time lines so we can have better outcomes with children. The same article says, ``If you can demonstrate results, you can win public support.'' If I can put it another way for this committee, we know if we demonstrate great results for children and families, we will have your support. That is why you enacted the Family Court Act of 2001. We want to be in a position to tell you the results we have made for children and the reasons why we are not making certain results. We are recording more information from our cases so we can tell you what the barriers are, we can tell you where the delays are, and we can tell you the areas in which we are successful in achieving permanency. You will be able to measure what we are doing because the act contains sufficient number of reporting mechanisms, evaluations and review periods to assure you know what we are doing. You will continue to use the Comptroller General, the GAO and the GSA to monitor our progress. We intend to report to you in a timely fashion on our progress. Let me finish by saying there are challenges. Some have been detailed in the GAO report. There are challenges we still face, some of which the agency is working on and we are pleased to see the agency making progress in reducing the number of children per social worker, their challenges in terms of drug treatment in the city because a significant number of our cases involve drug abuse in our child welfare cases and in our juvenile cases. We are working toward developing a new Family Drug Court in order to address those needs, but we need commitment and more drug treatment in the city. With these challenges, I am still optimistic that we will achieve better results for children in the future and if I can say on a personal note, having been born and raised in this city, I am excited about that prospect. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Judge Satterfield follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.044 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.045 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.046 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.047 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.048 Mrs. Morella. Ms. Wicks, I know as the Executive Officer, you make sure they have whatever they need and you kind of monitor them. Are there any comments you wanted to make before we go to questioning? Ms. Wicks. No. Mrs. Morella. All right. Well, we have you there as a great resource. We all know that outcome measures, as referred to in many instances, are really important. I know GAO has identified them too. I would ask our judges in particular what standards does the Court believe are needed to gauge the effectiveness of the court? Judge Wagner, you listed some strategic roles, that the courts strive to provide fair, swift, accessible justice, enhanced public safety and ensure public trust and confidence in the justice system. I am wondering, how should this community and the Congress gauge your performance in meeting your strategic goals? Judge Wagner. I think our strategic plan will include in some way measures nationally recognized in appellate and trial court performance standards which have been developed by the National Center for State Courts and the Appellate Court Performance Standards Commission. There are, as you indicated, several areas that are measured. These include in the trial court, access to justice, expedition and timeliness, equality, fairness and integrity, independence and accountability, and public trust and confidence. On the appellate court, they include quality of the judicial process, public access, case management and efficient use of public resources. As we move along in developing our strategic plan, our intention is that these performance standards will be incorporated to assure that those priorities that we have identified, as well as the work that we are performing, do measure up to those standards. Apparently the National Center for State Courts which, as you know, is a premiere national organization that was established initially by Chief Justice Berger to assist State courts to function better, has developed these standards. They have been working with courts throughout the Nation, with State court systems. We have an expert, Daniel Straub, who is an instructor at the Institute for Court Management, assisting us to incorporate these standards into our evaluation mechanisms. Mrs. Morella. I appreciate the efforts in developing the strategic plan. I am wondering when will the plan be completed. The National Center for State Courts, as you mentioned, has developed a trial court performance standard and measurement system that would incorporate 75 measures for assessing assessibility, timely processing of cases, public education. Does the Court plan to include the National Center's measurement system into its management system? Judge Wagner. That is our intention, yes. Mrs. Morella. How about a timeline? Judge Wagner. We are presently in the process of information gathering from employees, attorneys and litigants. I am not sure that was the very first one, but we started preparing survey instruments for these various stakeholders at our Joint Judicial and Bar Conference in April. We distributed these surveys. We have gathered information from the bench and from the Bar in an effort to set our performance goals. After getting input, we will identify best practices from around the country to help us establish performance expectations and optimal operations. We are looking at trends and demographic projections for what our caseload might be expected to be in the future and we will then develop the courtwide strategic plan. It will be based on these trial and appellate court performance standards. We do expect the anticipated date will be October 2002. We expect after that, it will take 2 years to fully implement the plan and focus performance objectives at the divisional level. That does not mean that there will not be work in progress; however the plan itself, we do anticipate having by October 2002. Mrs. Morella. Who reviews the plan when you get it by October? Does the plan go into operation immediately or does it go through further review, transition? Judge Wagner. My hope would be that by October 2002, when it is on paper, that it would be a ready product. Whether it would have gone through every level of review, I really cannot answer that for you at this moment. I guess I would have to gauge how much review goes in before the final product we expect in October, i.e., how much review precedes the October 2002 date. My expectation is that most judges and many in the legal community would have reviewed the product by then. Mrs. Morella. I would hope that it would really be an operation by that time having gone through all the different reviewers and stakeholders. I didn't know whether or not the other judges, Judge King or Judge Satterfield, would like to comment on that aspect of the strategic plan? Judge King. The strategic planning effort is one that involves both courts and we have a Senior Leadership Committee which draws on representatives from both courts including both chief judges and judges from both courts and senior staff. Much of what you just heard applies as well to the Superior Court. The standards involved for trial courts obviously are weighted much more toward things like convenience of access to large numbers of the public, timeliness and pre-trial and trial activity in the cases and things that are uniquely applicable to trial. It is the same set of performance measures that we will be referring to only it will be those uniquely applicable to trial courts. We anticipate shaping our implementation very much in accordance with their dictates. I would say as to the measures we are going to be applying as Judge Satterfield said, some of the things we are not waiting for, we already know some things that we can begin to measure more fully, particularly in the Family Court to keep track of how we are doing in bringing cases to permanency and what sort of safety measures we can determine. Mrs. Morella. Has the Court conducted any survey of satisfaction of the various users of the activities of the Court? Judge King. In the strategic planning project, yes, we have. In fact, in response to your question as to how much review would take place, Chief Judge Wagner is exactly on point. The process is so much a consultative process as we go along that much of the review will have been done. We surveyed the Bar, we are surveying jurors, we have surveyed and plan to survey members of the public so that there will be some relevant input from every agency, lawyer, official or others who have some reason to have an involvement with the courts. That is very much a part of the strategic planning process. Mrs. Morella. I note there has been a decline of cases before the courts. I have some figures here. In 1991, there were 18,000 civil cases; in 2001, there were 9,000 civil cases. That is a tremendous drop. Felony indictments dropped from more than 7,000 in 1997 to about 6,000 in 2001. I am curious about the judges' observations on this phenomenon. How is this decline for the positive? How was it attained? Judge King. A number of things have taken place in the civil area. We are now a little more than 10 years into a major reorganization almost on the dimensions of the reorganization of the Family Court that the legislation has made possible for us. I think there is another factor I have been made aware of in the strategic planning and consultations for the long term construction plans for the Family Court and other parts of the Court. That is that in court systems around the country, there has been observed a cyclical nature to the caseloads, so that what may be down now could go up again in 2, 3 or 4 years. I wouldn't want to say it is because all of a sudden for the first time in the history of the Court, we have stronger judges or something else. We don't know that for sure. I think a view of caution is required in planning based on where the caseloads are. Mrs. Morella. I guess it is sort of like the economy. Judge King. I think there is some of that. We like to think we are doing very well with our civil caseloads. Our criminal caseloads we are reducing, we are reducing police overtime, we are reducing the number of court appearances and, hopefully, causing pleas and other dispositions earlier in the process. So all those can help, but I hope we are not all going to the bank on the notion that our caseloads will never go up again. Mrs. Morella. That ties in with the whole concept of staffing. I note the Court has engaged a firm to review its staffing requirements. What is the status of the review and when will it be completed? Is the review going to compare the workload of the Court with other urban court systems? Judge King. If I might defer to Ms. Wicks? Ms. Wicks. The Court did enter a contract with Booz, Allen & Hamilton to look at our staffing levels and how we determine those, in part in response to a GAO review and in part in response to fiscal constraints and the need to most effectively use our resources. The study has been ongoing. We have extended the contract a number of times since January to get additional information from Booz Allen. Basically, they are proceeding in three phases. The first is what they call a weighted caseload model and staffing level assessment where they look at existing work flow and workload in each division. They are looking at workflow processes, functions and activities and the time spent performing each of these tasks. They are close to done with that and we expect their final report on June 14. We have reviewed draft reports and we expect a final on June 14 which will then be reviewed in-house and shared with the Joint Committee on Judicial Administration for final review. The second phase of their study is a workforce planning analysis where they are obtaining additional information relating to anticipated changes that will impact the Court's workload. They will be doing trends analysis and looking at shifts in demographic goals and desired employee skill levels. They will do a gap analysis to try to determine where improvements need to be made, where process reengineering could be considered. The final part of their study is to actually develop an automated tool that we will be able to use in the future. It will hold the work force data that they are gathering now and it will enable us to do ``what if'' scenarios and to reflect changes in our workload by using this automated tool. The tool they have actually developed and are going to demonstrate it to us this month as well, but it is still in the refining stages because they are still collecting data. Mrs. Morella. When you continue to renew the contract with Booz Allen? Ms. Wicks. They are no cost extensions. Booz Allen wanted more information from us, we have wanted more work from them. In January, for instance, when the Family Court bill was passed, we asked them to take a second and new look at Family Court in light of the changes that were going to be implemented. Mrs. Morella. I know their contracted expired in January and you renewed it several times? Ms. Wicks. Exactly. Mrs. Morella. I note that you say the weighted caseloads prior to that first phase will be completed on June 14 but then you didn't mention anything about timelines or the rest of it, the workload analysis which you say there is a second phase? Ms. Wicks. Right. It is a three phase project but the phases are concurrent, they are not consecutive. They are just about complete with the workforce planning analysis as well; they are just not to final reporting yet. As I said, on the third phase, the tool, they have already designed and developed this automated tool and will be testing it for us. I would anticipate probably before the end of this fiscal year, the entire project will be complete. Mrs. Morella. Very good because that was one of the concerns we had with the whole concept of the staffing. Speaking of cases and caseload and the case clearance rate, that I know is the measure you refer to in your statement, Judge Wagner, as a pretty good performance measure, the number of cases disposed annually compared to the number of cases filed but case clearance doesn't measure how long it takes for the public to get a decision in its case, the time for disposition, the time to the disposition. I commend you for providing such time to disposition statistics in your annual report for the Court of Appeals; however, as I look at it, some of the data is somewhat troubling because it takes a very long time, 522 days, for the Court of Appeals to issue rulings on cases--that is on page 46. I wondered is there a goal or strategy that you for reducing that time? Judge Wagner. I think we do. I don't know whether you have the entire chart, but for some time we have measured the overall time on appeal in segments because there are many steps in the process. A party notes an appeal and then a party has to get a record. The record consists of documents filed which have to be reproduced as well as transcripts of the proceedings. We have been monitoring the time it takes for getting the transcripts and the records and then the time it takes after we get the transcripts and the records to get the briefs from the parties. Our goal is to find out what causes the problem and to fix it. If you note, for example, the time for filing a notice of appeal to filing of the record was 256 of those days. I mentioned in my testimony the successful efforts we have made in securing transcripts in a more timely manner. The impact of securing those transcripts in a more timely manner you will not see probably for some time because first, once that gets cleared, you will have to have lawyers filing briefs. We have to have ready cases, cases that have been fully through this entire process before the judges can ever hear them. That is a number we believe you will see reduced and that will impact the overall time on appeal number. Then you move from the time of filing the record to the completing briefing. We have rules which specify how long you have to file a brief. Nevertheless, we do have people who ask for extensions. We have a number of institutional representatives who have a number of cases in our court, therefore, they have more than one brief to file. Extensions are requested, but we try to minimize and discourage the number of extensions requested. Thus, we have reduced that number between 2000 and 2001 and we hope to continue to reduce that number. That accounts for 263 of your days. Then it is the time it takes to get on the calendar and that depends on how many cases are standing ready to get on the calendar. That is 153 days, but that is greatly reduced between 1999 and 2001. It has gone from 202 days in 1999 to 153 days in 2001. What we do is troubleshoot each of the areas where we are having problems. Whether the problem is lawyers not getting briefs in on time, or not getting the records on time, or not paying for the transcripts where they have to be paid for or not paying for the record where they have to be paid for, or if it is in-house, where our transcribers are not transcribing fast enough, we troubleshoot each one of those areas. I think we will have measured successes from our efforts, particularly on the transcripts. In terms of the time from argument to submission of decision, that is 4 months. So once appeals are heard, on average, it is not a long delay. I might say that for the expedited TPRs and adoptions, the time from argument to decision is half as long on the average approximately 50 days. Mrs. Morella. I can see some points where there has been improvement, others where there hasn't. I am not a lawyer, I just look at all these numbers and think they could all use improvement, quite frankly. I would respectfully request that may be instead of dwelling on this now, maybe our staffs could keep posted in terms of what is happening and what is being done. Judge Wagner. We know it is a complicated issue for people to understand who are not dealing with it on a daily basis. We have excellent staff dealing with these numbers. They work with each segment to make sure you make improvements in each segment. Only then will the sum of the parts be improved overall. Mrs. Morella. Right, and I can see some improvement in some areas. By and large, I think the areas could use some improvement. I thank you very much. I wanted to ask GAO, what standards do you think there should be for these outcome measures since you refer to that in the GAO report? Ms. Ashby. We refer to them in the context of the Family Court and in looking at the transition plan, we were somewhat concerned because what we saw in terms of measures were mostly process measures, input measures and there is nothing wrong with process measures and output measures, certainly those are appropriate to certain types of activities. What we didn't see were what we would call outcome measures. In our statement, we listed a couple of examples. As an example, the Court could look at changes in the number of instances in which adoptions proceed without some type of disruption or in terms of length of time in foster care, the trends in terms of whether children in foster care are undergoing instances of abuse or not and how that changes over time. There are outcomes that should be measured and looked at to get a full picture of performance. It is possible to have a process that is proceeding exactly as intended but not reaching the desired outcomes because it is not the right process. That is why you need the full array of measures in order to make decisions about performance and the quality of what is happening. Mrs. Morella. Have you, Ms. Ashby, assessed the Family Court module of IJIS? Is it able to communicate with the District's information system? Ms. Ashby. We are not at that point yet. The Court is not at that point yet as far as I know. As I understand, later this week the Court is going to submit to GAO its request for proposal as it attempts to develop and install systems. We will review that. As stated in our statement, GAO did, in February, issue a report on IJIS and we found that basically the difficulty was the discipline processes that are necessary to develop a system that will meet user needs had not happened at that point. The courts agreed and have gone back and revisited a lot of the steps and is now instilling that discipline in its processes. We are now at a point where there is a draft RFP where the Court actually sought information on what on-the-shelf software might be available to meet some of the needs and so forth. So we are not at the point yet where we can assess how the Court's doing with regard to the Family Court. Mrs. Morella. Have you reviewed the latest version of the RFP? Ms. Ashby. We have not. As I understand, we will get that later this week. Mrs. Morella. Judge King. Judge King. I think she is correct. When we get the final plan to them, I assume, at least from our point of view, the effort has been to work closely with GAO, so that we stay in step with the concerns they have and address them promptly. There is nothing that would be a worse outcome for everybody than to have this project get completed and then have to go back and redo part of it. So we are working very hard to stay in step with GAO's concerns. What I can say on the question you raised about communication with the rest of the District is that we have locked in contracts for one of two or three of the most universal platforms in use in the District and around the country for communication across different systems. So our goal is going to be to design a system which anybody can use at whatever level they are capable of sharing data with us without detriment to either us or to them. We have already taken a significant step in locking in software licenses on an important piece of that software. Mrs. Morella. Ms. Wicks would like to comment. Ms. Wicks. If I could add, it is my understanding that staff from the GAO and our IT Division will be meeting on Friday to go through a final RFP. Since we have been working closely with GAO, we are quite hopeful that everything has been ironed out and we will be able to go forward and issue that RFP. Mrs. Morella. Yes, Judge Satterfield? Judge Satterfield. If I may respond to some of the outcome measures, not the IJIS system, I have started to work with Dr. Golden about measuring certain outcomes because we have common goals for children and we have to measure it jointly because some of the information in terms of measuring is with the agency and some is with the court. So when we talk about things such as disruption of adoptions, those are sort of joint things we can do together to measure. The processes that have been developed are important because they lead to timely decisionmaking for the children and better quality hearings for the children. That results in achieving permanency for the children a lot quicker. So we are working on these outcome measures. We recognize that and intend to continue to collaborate and work with the other stakeholders who have the information we need and share that information so that we can reach the outcomes we all agree are necessary to achieve our common goals for children. Mrs. Morella. Judge Satterfield and Judge King, have you determined or delineated what the qualifications are of the judges? Judge Satterfield. Yes, we have and we are pleased to say that they are all qualified from experience, training or both. We have had a significant amount of training for these judges over the last few years in domestic violence, in abuse, neglect. We train these judges at the end of each year before they go into assignment. We give these judges a pre-service before they become a judge and are assigned. As indicated earlier, a number of the judges in the Family Court now were judges already serving cases of children and families within our Family Division. So we have a training program, we have a wonderful curriculum that addresses a number of the topics contained in the Family Court Act and are going to continue to provide the training. That is one of the things that excited the judges about coming to the Family Court, that there would be ongoing training and ongoing opportunity to better themselves and how they serve these cases. Mrs. Morella. I was curious before this hearing about the number of senior judges that have been assigned to the Family Court. If I remember your testimony, Judge King, you said two. Would you like to comment on that? Judge Satterfield. Right now there are two senior judges who still have abuse and neglect cases. Judge Burnett who also has helped us out with our adoptions, has been a stellar judge in family matters and another judge who is experienced in family matters. I think Chief Judge King said their cases just like the other judges are going during the transition period back into Family Court. As he said, we do not intend to use senior judges except if it is an emergency situation. We are going to do a fair amount of training, so it would be necessary to have a qualified senior judge in family law to do emergency hearings while the other judges are doing the training, or in situations where a judge may go out on medical leave, but we will strive hard to make sure it doesn't hurt the case management approach of one judge/one family by giving them types of cases that are not part of that case management because not all the cases we do in Family Court do lend themselves to one judge/one family. In other words, we don't expect they will be handling abuse and neglect cases except if they were going to handle the emergency hearings that come up when the Court is training. Mrs. Morella. So have any senior judges been assigned to the Family Court and how many? Judge Satterfield. No, they are not assigned to the Family Court now. Mrs. Morella. They have not been assigned and will not be assigned to the Family Court? Judge Satterfield. One clarification. Judge Burnett has been resolving some of the adoption cases that he had last year when he was assigned to the Family Division and he is working on that because we want to increase the number of adoptions we have. Using him as well as Judge Shuger has helped us, with the Child and Family Services Agency, to achieve certain benchmarks they had to achieve this year on adoption cases. Mrs. Morella. One final question in the interest of time and we would love to be able to send some questions to you, and I know you love to receive them. This would be to Ms. Wicks. Your annual financial report is prepared using a modified accrual method of accounting and your monthly financial reports are prepared on a cash basis. How do you reconcile the different accounting treatments? Do you prepare a monthly financial report using the modified accrual treatment? Ms. Wicks. We use GSA as our contractor for payroll and accounting. The payroll function has been adequate for us but, as your question points out, the system lacks a general ledger which makes it very difficult for us to efficiently handle financial management. We are certainly capable of doing it, but what we have to do at this point is use several standalone software applications and spreadsheets and various tools to reconcile the fact that there is both obligation basis accounting and this cash basis. We produce monthly reports. We receive information from GSA to prepare those reports and provide the information back to GSA to prepare the reports for you. Our long term goal is to develop our own financial management system which will integrate and reconcile these two methods of accounting and really provide a more budget oriented report. The GSA monthly reports look at expenses, in and out the door. What we really need is to budget for these and start with a budget figure at the start of the year and then each month come off the top budget figure and see how much we have and balance this in the different operating divisions. We do it now manually. If you take a new look in our 2003 budget, you will see a request for funding to develop an integrated financial management system with a general ledger function. Mrs. Morella. May I ask how that relationship with GSA has worked? Ms. Wicks. The relationship is fine. It is a contractual relationship. We are their largest customer, they can't really provide the services we need at this point in time, so we are negotiating with them to see if they will be capable of providing what we need or if we should be looking to another vendor or develop our own system. Mrs. Morella. Please keep us posted. I want to thank the panel and I now want to defer to Congresswoman Norton if she has any final questions for the first panel. Ms. Norton. I will ask only a few questions. I am assuming most of my questions have been asked. I apologize again that I have another hearing which also raises important issues for my District that I had to attend and therefore missed part of the testimony. If I begin to ask a question that has been asked, please stop me before I kill. Let me begin this question with the notion of the transition period. Mr. DeLay was very impatient with the notion of a transition. I had to talk long and hard about the need for a transition, the time for transition but he was justifiably interested that the transition take place and take place without delay. You had a structural problem literally and metamorphically, namely space. I was concerned that the GSA indicated the way in which space goes--often the case when you build space--the neck bone is connected to the thigh bone or whatever and if it doesn't fall in place, the next one doesn't fall in place. The GSA mentioned the absence of alternatives. Assuming there is a glitch in this interdependent space plan being put in place, what I want to know because there will be real consternation in the Congress, if there is something you tell us you couldn't help because you couldn't, because you can't always deal with how construction does or does not fall in place and it notoriously does not fall in place often, the Congress is not going to want to hear that I am sorry, there were construction delays. The Congress is going to want to hear that we went to Plan B on a temporary basis and put in place. Judge King. Let me make an observation. I very much appreciate that concern. There are parts of the implementation that would be extremely costly and time consuming to try to go out and rent duplicate space unless we knew we absolutely needed it. Of course, if we had to, we would. In fact, I did an early assessment myself of space alternatives to what the architects were planning as a way of just making sure we understood what they were telling us. I can say the result of that survey was that other than our court buildings in the justice campus, it becomes geometrically more complicated to do firm alternatives farther out. As for the short term, getting the people in so we can bring all the cases back into the Family Court, we have looked at some alternatives in our space. It would be cramped, but we would figure out a way to do it. Ms. Norton. Judge Satterfield. Judge Satterfield. I was going to add to that. One of the important pieces of the Family Court Act is that we move the cases from outside of Family Court back in during this transition period, so we are looking at alternatives if the space isn't built out as we want it, to make sure we find some space. As the Chief Judge says, it may be smaller than the average space that we use but we want to have more magistrate judges hearing more of those cases so we can achieve permanency. So we are looking at those options of building out smaller spaces temporarily until the major overall of space is done, if we run into those problems as identified in the GAO report. Ms. Norton. I am not sure what building out smaller space means but whatever it means---- Judge Satterfield. Let me clarify, smaller space so that we can have hearing rooms to hear those cases so those judges can actively work those cases. When I talk about smaller space, I am talking about hearing rooms. Ms. Norton. I appreciate, Judge King, that nobody would go out and rent space that is not what we are talking about. Creatively one would have to think about things like subdividing space and the rest of it temporarily. All I want to do is prevent a controversy from developing on the Hill. I don't like to deal with problems after they develop, particularly when they are problems people could not have foreseen and cannot do anything about. It will raise a problem here because the GAO pointed out the problem. I would advise the Court to consider what kinds of alternatives might be available, not because you want to move to them but simply because you may have to and you could more easily do so if you had a few options on the table to think about. When Judge Judy Rogers was the Chief Judge, she worked closely with me and in fact, was very energetic about getting an appellate court. When you say your court hears more cases, the Congress should understand it is not because the District of Columbia has more cases than anyplace in the United States; it is because it doesn't have an intermediate court. So you go straight from the trial court to the court of appeals. Actually, we worked hard on it here, there wasn't a lot of interest in it, particularly in the Senate. I note that even though there has been some criticism of the Court for backlogs, the fact is caseloads have declined fairly remarkably. Felony and reinstatements have declined by 14 percent over the past 5 years; civil actions declined by 49 percent over the past 10 years. Does that mean that the Court--the Superior Court-- believes that without an intermediate court, given these declines, that these declines are not simply because they have taken place over a period of an entire decade, are not simply declines that are short term, that could rise again, but are structural declines and perhaps the Court is performing in a satisfactory way, all things considered, without yet another subdivision of the Court? Judge King. I did address that. Ms. Norton. Then don't answer it. I don't want to take the time. Judge King. It is a mixture of things. I hope that we have made some gains on the caseload. Ms. Norton. You answered the bottom line question, whether you need an intermediate court? You have answered that for our record? Judge King. From my point of view as the trial court, I would say no, we don't need it but I would defer to my boss, if I might. Ms. Norton. Judge Wagner. Judge Wagner. This is not a question I could answer immediately at this hearing because, as indicated, there are a number of issues related to population increase, caseload trends, a lot of issues affecting today's reality that we have to look at, that we have not looked at, in order to answer your question today. What we do know is, insofar as our caseload is concerned, that there are fluctuations over 10 years. It shows that right now the filings are down, but our space planners tell us that in constructing courts throughout the country, you have to look at caseloads for a period of time. Ms. Norton. The reason these are significant, Judge Wagner, is that the figures I just read were 10 year figures. I am aware from year to year you get fluctuations but these are declines over a period of 10 years. They would tend to argue against an intermediate court. Judge Wagner. My suggestion would be that bench, Bar and the others who are stakeholders in this examine this in light of the strategic planning that is underway. We certainly will have a great deal of information from which to make an informed judgment about what is necessary now. So I would like to work with you on that. Ms. Norton. I would not submit a strategic plan that did not speak to that issue one way or another particularly in light of these figures and in light of the difficulty I had in trying to get the court. I don't think it would be doable but we do need to do as long as you are doing a strategic plan whether or not somehow in the foreseeable future down the road, you think this court would need an intermediate court. Judge Wagner. I think there are just a few States. Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Mrs. Morella. Thank you, Congresswoman Norton. Just one final question. I mentioned in my opening statement the fact I saw there was $18 million left in the Crime Victims Compensation Fund. I am curious about the number of claims, increased by 39 percent in 2001 to a total of 1,538. I just wonder why is there that slowness in dispensing the compensation? What percentage of individuals who filed in 2001 received compensation? Judge King. I think generally the fund is becoming better known, so I hope it will continue to increase in its use, but I am going to defer Ms. Wicks. Ms. Wicks. As you mentioned, we did serve about 1,500 crime victims last year which is a fifteenfold increase from the year before we took it over, 1996 when 140 victims were served. It is a matter of outreach, people recognizing that the funding is available. The $18 million surplus is something that accumulated over a number of years. I think, as you are aware, there was language in the 2002 Appropriations Act that the District of Columbia could receive 50 percent of the unobligated balance in that account. We have been working with the District of Columbia in order for them to have access to that balance. Currently they have submitted their plan to Congress on how they have used those funds and how they will get better outreach to the community and better victim services. The problem right now is a technical problem. The District needs the money to be ``no year'' money so that when the moneys transfer over, they have the ability to use the money. We are working with the District and are ready to transfer about $12 million in crime victims money to the District. They cannot receive the money as yet. As far as ongoing claims, day in and day out, in this fiscal year, we are up to $2.6 million in claims going out the fund takes in, I would say, roughly $6 million a year. We are approaching where we are providing 50 percent of the funds back out annually. Mrs. Morella. But you haven't given any of the funds back yet? Ms. Wicks. To the District? Mrs. Morella. Why not? Mr. Wicks. We have tried to give funds to the District. Mr. Ghandi has asked us to retain the funds until he has the ability to take them and use them. Ms. Norton. Madam Chair, apparently the bill is in second reading today. This has been one of the great tragedies. I go on the streets and victims of crime, to give examples, the District doesn't have enough beds for women who are victims of domestic violence and here we are sitting on this money. Part of this is not the Court's fault. Part of this is the Court was giving out money to victims. The way this was set up, it was kind of on a retail basis. Do you need some money? Of course if somebody comes forward to say you need some money, you have to show a series of things in order to get money on a retail basis. That is not the way to give the money out if you are interested in dealing with victims of crime. For example, somebody who is no longer in her house because of domestic violence may not have come before the court and may not yet have been adjudicated a victim of crime, but that person doesn't have any place for herself or her family to stay. We were so concerned about this money building up in a bank that we got the Appropriations Committee to give 50 percent of the money to the District Government so it could be used more broadly, in a broader definition of what a victim of crime is. Some of this money is going to go for a Child Advocacy Center, something we desperately need, a one shop place where an abused child can come--many jurisdictions have these child advocacy centers but we haven't had the money to do it. Mrs. Morella. But nothing has been done, right? Ms. Norton. Part of this has to do with the bill that is in the second reading. That is why I wanted to get that on the record. The bill is in the second reading. The bill is indicate where this money is going, it is going to be a revolving fund. Some of the money is going to be used not on a retail basis but on the basis in which victims come forward which is often the need for bed space for a mother and child who have no place to go, sometimes for victims advocates at the Metropolitan Police Department. You point out a very important issue. This has been out there for years ever since 1997 when the fund was created because we thought it was a wonderful thing. It became available when the Federal Government took over the court costs. I think now that the bill it coming to second reading and going to existence any day now or any week now, we need to follow whether or not this is a better way to allocate the money. I don't think anyone should have a proprietary sense of this money. The Court has wanted to hold onto this money, even given the fact the money wasn't being spent. It seems to me the best way to look at this money is who can spent this money and get it to victims of crime without some court driven, law driven definition of what a victim of a crime is. We will be following this very closely because we are going on 5 years or so now where essentially we have allowed this money to buildup, knowing full well there are people who anybody in the general public would know has been a victim of crime but because of the way the fund is structured, we have not been able to get these resources to them. Mrs. Morella. In Maryland, they have a Criminal Justice Compensation Committee and Fund also. It is a requirement to notify victims that this is available. I think as part of your outreach you should consider that in addition. Did you want to comment? Ms. Wicks. I would love to comment on that. The Court has to follow Federal statute on eligibility for reimbursement to the crime victims. We do outreach. MPD carries cards that we provide to give out at all crime scenes to anyone, family members or direct victims, who may be eligible for compensation. We give out cards at the local hospitals; we are working with child abuse victims and domestic violence victims. People do not have to be court involved to apply for and receive funds from the program. The Court has been very actively involved with the District to try to get the moneys over to the District. The District's plan, it is not constrained by these Federal requirements as to the way the court's program is structured. So they will be able to provide less direct individual victim services, but more services such as establishing child advocacy centers, which we all know benefit victims but not specific individual victims having to come forward. The Court quite honestly rather than trying to retain these funds. We were required by the Appropriations Act to turn the $18 million in to the U.S. Treasury at the end of the last fiscal year, I believe, on October 30 which we did do according to law. Then we immediately worked in response to the city's request to get the Treasury Department to transfer the money back so we could keep it available to the District. Ms. Norton. The reason is if the money isn't spent, the U.S. Government claims the money. What we have to do is look at this 50 percent and see if it gets spent and review whether or not it works. I am not blaming the Court for this and you are absolutely right about the Federal guidelines but we can't allow that situation to go on much longer, given quite desperate needs in the District while we sit on this money and let it grow. Ms. Wicks. We totally agree. I think the issue right now is the $18 million because that money expires; the Federal Government wants to take it. Annually, obviously there is not $18 million. If $6 million is going in to the fund and each year we are paying out more and more to victims, we are at $3.5 million, next year it will be $4.5 million, there is not going to be that balance available in the future. So it is very important that the District gets that balance now because it is a one-time opportunity for a large infusion of money to do some victim assistance. Ms. Norton. If I could put on the record, the bill sets up a revolving fund so that this money does not get reclaimed by the Treasury. It must be reclaimed by the Treasury as we think of how to retain the money. The bill that is its second reading will be a revolving fund so the Treasury won't come in an snatch the money out. Ms. Wicks. Exactly. Mrs. Morella. I want to thank the first panel for being with this for such a long period of time and appreciate what I call a work in progress. We look forward to having further updates. Thank you Ms. Ashby, thank you Judge Wagner, Judge King, Judge Satterfield and Ms. Wicks. If the second panel that has been so patient would come forward: Steve Harlan, Dr. Olivia Golden and Arabella Teal. We have the distinguished Stephen Harlan, Chairman of the Board, Council for Court Excellence; Dr. Olivia Golden, Director, District of Columbia Child and Family Services; and Ms. Arabella Teal, Principal Deputy Corporation Counsel, District of Columbia. I am going to ask if I might swear you in. Please stand and raise your right hand. [Witnesses sworn.] Mrs. Morella. You have responded affirmatively. We will start with Mr. Harlan. It is good to see you. I notice there has been an addition fully cultivated and it looks very good. Thank you, sir. STATEMENTS OF STEPHEN HARLAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, COUNCIL FOR COURT EXCELLENCE; DR. OLIVIA GOLDEN, DIRECTOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES; AND ARABELLA TEAL, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CORPORATION COUNSEL, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Mr. Harlan. Thank you, Madam Chair. We really appreciate being invited to be here today. As you pointed out, my name is Steve Harlan and I serve as Chair of the Council for Court Excellence and have been so since December 1998. Having served on the D.C. Financial Control Board and focused my attention while on that board to oversight of public safety, i have a special interest in court operations and citizen participation and understanding of the courts. Not at the table, but here with me today, I am joined by Sam Harihan, the outgoing Executive Director of the Council for Court Excellence. This is almost his last day which is tomorrow. Jeanne Bonds, our new Executive Director, is here today; as is Priscilla Skillman. I am honored to present the views of the Council for Court Excellence to this committee. The Council is a non-partisan, non-profit civic organization that works to improve the administration of justice in the local and Federal courts and related agencies in Washington, DC. We have worked closely with the Senate and the House District of Columbia Subcommittees in the past on such issues. We have submitted full written testimony and I will touch on the highlights this morning. I would like to point out that no judicial member of the Council for Court Excellence participated in or contributed to the formulation of our testimony here today. Overall, we have found through our independent observations, analyses and studies that the D.C. Trial Court and Appellate Court possess and excellent bench. There are many examples where the D.C. Courts function well. For example, the D.C. Drug Court, the Domestic Violence Court and the Civil II courts each represent aspects of the Trial Courts which appear to functioning well and the D.C. Superior Court should be commended for the implementation of these courts. However, there is room for some improvement, especially with respect to the openness of the courts and their ability to present timely data to the community that shows how well they are operating and progressing. We are encouraged by the fact that the D.C. Courts are now undertaking a strategic planning process to focus on long range planning and self assessment. Using some of the nationally recognized performance standards and that the courts have invited a variety of groups and individuals, including us, to make comments and participate in discussions with the Court's Strategic Planning Council. I would like to take a few moments to focus on several recent reports and analyses of the D.C. Superior Court operations which the Council for Court Excellence has done. A major court improvement area in which the Council has been engaged for the past 2 years is the facilitation of the joint work by the city's public officials to reform the child welfare system and specifically to meet the challenges of implementing the Federal Adoptions and Safe Family Act of 1997. We believe the D.C. Superior Court has done an excellent job preparing the Family Court's case management plan and we commend the Court both for the inclusive and collaborative process followed in developing the plan and for the quality of the resulting document. Once fully implemented, this plan should yield better, more consistent and more expeditious service to everyone who has business before the Family Court, especially the city's abused and neglected children. We applaud the Court, especially Chief Judge Rufus King, Family Court Presiding Judge Lee Satterfield, and Family Court Deputy Presiding Judge Anita Josey-Herring, for their strong leadership and commitment to the success of this planning process. There are three areas of particular interest to the Council. First is calendaring practices of the judicial officers; second is support staffing and business processing reengineering; and third, training and cross-training programs. The D.C. child welfare system will not improve unless the plans and reform of the courts, the Child and Family Services Agency and the Office of Corporation Counsel are fully synchronized and unless the performance of all participants in the D.C. child welfare system improves. The Court's calendaring process will determine how frequently Child and Family Services Agency social workers and the Office of Corporation Counsel attorneys will need to be in each of the 25 courtrooms handling child abuse and neglect cases. The way the courts organize for Family Court judicial hearings has a great impact on the resource needs and management practices of the Child and Family Services Agency and the Office of Corporation Counsel and how these agencies will work, how they will be managed and how successful they will be in the future. So it all is very interrelated and has to be well coordinated. Our second area of concern is the Family Court supporting staffing and business processing reengineering. The Court's transition plan emphasizes the organization and assignment of the caseload among judicial officers with little description of the Family Court support staffing infrastructure and case management processes. Lawyers, other court users, and concerned civil groups, like the Council, have strong interest in the staffing and processing topics. Our third topic of concern is training and cross training. The courts planned quarterly in-house and cross-training will be planned and presented for the Court and stakeholder personnel. The Council has offered to provide any appropriate help to the Court and other child welfare leadership team stakeholders to plan these training initiatives. The second area in which the Council has engaged was police overtime for prosecutions and court hearings. We commend the Congress for two things you have done. First, you have given the D.C. Criminal Justice Coordinating Council demonstration funding of $1 million a year for the past 2 years to enable experimentation and testing of new approaches. Innovative programs like the D.C. Community Court are the direct result of Congress providing modest risk capital to the D.C. Superior Court and other criminal justice agencies. The second critically important thing that Congress has done is to hold the courts, the police and other D.C. criminal justice agencies accountable to deliver a more efficient and effective criminal justice system to the D.C. residents. Just as in the case of the D.C. child welfare system, the management of police officers over time can only be addressed by assessing the entire system and the performance of all participants. The Council is concerned with several major areas: monitoring the various agencies to assure the reduction in police overtime; the reliability of case scheduling and the manner in which officers are summoned and the continued funding of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. Time permitting, I would like to briefly mention several other topics in our findings. The Council has undertaken two separate court observation programs using trained volunteers to observe court sessions and provide comments on the court's operations. This project provides members of the community a direct voice in how their courts are run and a means to provide the court with fresh, common sense feedback and perspectives of persons who do not frequent the courts regularly. Our studies focused on the Civil Division and the Criminal Division of the D.C. Superior Court. We have had literally hundreds of observations. There were three major findings from these two observation projects. First, citizens experienced confusion and difficulty finding where to go in the D.C. Courthouse. Second, citizen observers were very impressed with our judges. Finally, our court observers were fully gratified and impressed to observe firsthand the proceedings in the D.C. Drug Court. Last July, the Council concluded an examination of the grand jury system. Our report contained many important recommendations. On a practical level, we urged the D.C. Superior Court to take steps to reduce the size of the grand jury; to further reduce the amount of time citizens spend on grand juries; and to relocate the Superior Court grand juries from the present, inappropriate home within the U.S. Attorneys Office to an appropriate court building. We think that should be a part of this whole facilities planning operation. In 1989 we undertook our first study of the civil trial case processing along with recommendations for improvement. The D.C. Superior Court responded with a comprehensive civil case delay reduction plan. In our 2002 report, which will be off the presses tomorrow, we looked back and assessed the past 10 years and found the reforms implemented by the D.C. Superior Court in 1991 significantly reduced the time for civil case filings and disposition. Our recent report documents that as of 1999, the D.C. Superior Court's Civil Division disposed of 81 percent of its cases within 12 months; 86 percent within 18 months; and 99 percent within 24 months. That is a very good record. In conclusion, we would like to highlight several other areas. First, as I said the willingness of the D.C. courts to demonstrate their improvement and performance in the community through regularly, publicly released and timely statistics will encourage public understanding. Specific statistics will highlight trends and enable courts to objectively assess whether they are or are not operating plans and that they might need adjustments. The successful design and implementation of the court's planned Integrated Justice Information System is a critical element in this commitment to transparency. Second, public distribution of court budget priorities will enable the community to provide input as to whether or not those priorities match the trends and focus of the issues of importance to the citizens the courts serve. We encourage the D.C. courts to consider analyzing all their operational data against American Bar Association standards as a number of other States already do, and publicly show the community their progress. Third, now and in the coming years, as the number of pro se litigants continues to increase generally and in specific areas, our courts will need to address self service opportunities at the courthouse and electronically to handle the public's interaction with the courts. Careful planning, innovation and coordination of the professional staff for efficient processing in these areas needs to begin now. The majority of our testimony today has been addressed to the trial court issues. It is important that the needs of the D.C. Court of Appeals be understood and addressed as well. We have long been troubled by the delay in the appellate court. It was a concern 10 years ago and it is a concern today. We thank the subcommittee for your policy and fiscal leadership in overseeing the D.C. trial and appellate courts and we thank the D.C. courts for the plans it has laid out for itself and the manner in which it has received our various recommendations. We look forward to working with the D.C. courts and with Congress as you continue to bring planned reforms to fruition. I am happy to answer your questions. [The prepared statement of Mr. Harlan follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.049 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.050 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.051 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.052 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.053 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.055 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.056 Mrs. Morella. Thank you for your service on the Council for Court Excellence as well as your work earlier on the Control Board. I also want to acknowledge, as you did, Sam Harihan who has helped to guide the Council for Excellence for I think 20 years, a long time. You have been an unyielding advocate for court reform and we appreciate you being here. Dr. Golden, I am delighted to recognize you. Thank you for being here. Dr. Golden. I am Olivia Golden, Director of the District's Child and Family Services Agency. You have my written testimony, so I will briefly summarize. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on behalf of Mayor Williams and Deputy Mayor Graham regarding the implementation of the Family Court. I would like to express my gratitude for your leadership in the passage of the Family Court Act and for the leadership of Chief Judge King and Presiding Judge Satterfield in the implementation of the act. I believe we have entered a new era of collaboration with the Court. I would like to express appreciation for several broad themes included in the Court's transition plan for implementing the act, the clear focus of the plan on children's safety and prompt movement toward permanence; the commitment to move immediately to a one judge/one family approach for all new abuse and neglect cases; the commitment to joint decisionmaking with stakeholders; and the commitment to team work among all those who work with children. Within the District, we have laid the groundwork for implementation of the act over the past year by dramatically expanding and restructuring legal support for CFSA. In the past, in an agency with as many as 1,500 court hearings a month regarding abused and neglected children, the work of social workers used to be supported by only 16 abuse and neglect attorneys, meaning social workers were generally not represented in court and there was rarely time for attorneys and social workers to prepare together and provide the court with high quality information. We now have 39 attorneys on board and are covering approximately 85 percent of all court hearings. We have also reformed the structure of legal services to create an attorney/ client relationship with agency social workers and we have completed the co-location of attorneys and social workers to facilitate communication. We are currently awaiting the completion of a staffing study commissioned from the American Bar Association which we expect to recommend that we convert to vertical prosecution meaning a single attorney will keep the case from just after the initial hearing through the permanency decision consistent with the Court's one judge/one family structure. My written testimony includes many examples of collaborative planning and early victories in implementing the Family Court legislation of which I will mention two here. CFSA, the Court and other stakeholders worked together to identify those cases that are best suited for an immediate transfer into the Family Court. We chose cases where the transfer could make an immediate difference to the child's chance of growing up in a permanent family. For example, we chose cases where a child has been living for a long time in a kin setting that is well suited to adoption or guardianship and as a result of the close relationship with the Court that we have developed through the Family Court process, we are now likely to achieve our goal of 328 finalized adoptions in the 12 months ending May 31, 2002. This goal set for us by the Federal Court Monitor represents a substantial increase over the previous 12 months and it is only within reach because our collaboration with the Court has streamlined the process. As a key next step in Family Court implementation, we look forward to continuing our work with the Court, highlighted also by Judge Satterfield, to reduce the number of judges hearing abuse and neglect cases. This is of vital importance because reducing the number of courtrooms makes possible the support and training for a core group of judicial officers envisioned in the act, reduces scheduling conflicts for attorneys and social workers, increases the amount of time social workers are able to spend in the field, and therefore allows higher quality case management on behalf of children. My written testimony goes on to provide additional information on the status of child welfare reform in the District. Ten days from today marks the 1-year anniversary of the termination of the Federal Court receivership on June 15, 2001. Since that time, the pace of reform in the District's child welfare system has been extraordinary. I know this committee has been a part of it all the way. Coupled with the work of the Court, the reforms initiated by the District have created a unique window of opportunity to enhance the well-being of children in the District. As I say, the details or in my written testimony. I would be happy to answer questions. I would like to conclude by highlighting two next steps for the attention of the Congress over the coming months. First, I would like to express my appreciate to the Congress for focusing in the Family Court Act on the need to develop border agreements among Maryland, Virginia and the District in order to ensure prompt movement toward permanence for the District's children. We are currently working closely with Maryland to secure an agreement. In fact, I am delighted to report a very successful meeting in Baltimore yesterday with Maryland Secretary, Imelda Johnson. We look forward to continuing to update the Congress on progress and next steps in the agreements with both Maryland and Virginia. Second, I am extremely appreciative of the support of this committee for the District's proposal that Congress increase the Federal reimbursement rate for foster care and adoption in the District to 70 percent, the same reimbursement rate as Medicaid, as in all other jurisdictions. I appreciate your support and ask for your continued assistance to ensure congressional enactment. Thank you for your consistent support of the vulnerable children of the District of Columbia and I look forward to answering any questions. [The prepared statement of Dr. Golden follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.057 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.058 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.059 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.060 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.061 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.062 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.063 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.064 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.065 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.066 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.067 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.068 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.069 Mrs. Morella. Thank you very much and I want to just reiterate the fact that your testimony in its entirety as presented will be a part of the record. I am very pleased now to recognize Arabella Teal. Thank you for being with us. Ms. Teal. Good afternoon. I am Arabella Teal, the Principal Deputy Corporation Counsel for the District of Columbia. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today on behalf of Corporation Counsel Robert Rigsby. I would like to focus my testimony today on how the Office of the Corporation Counsel is coordinating with the Family Court and other key stakeholders to ensure the elements of the implementation plan are completed in a timely and successful manner. I have submitted a statement for the record but my remarks will briefly address five key areas. The first if the role of the Office of the Corporation Counsel in the new Family Court. As you know, the District of Columbia Family Court Act of 2001 requires major changes in the way family law cases are handled. The act replaces the Superior Court's Family Division with a Family Court involving matters in the Domestic Relations Branch, the Juvenile Branch, the Child Support Branch, the Child Abuse and Neglect Branch, the Mental Health and Retardation Branch and the Marriage Bureau. The act also requires that the Court handle all family cases pursuant to a one judge/one family model. The provisions of the Family Court Act as well as the Superior Court's implementation plan require that my office reevaluation the legal structure of all units of our office involved in the Family Court process, so that the elements of the implementation plan are completed and so that children and families are better served by the system. The Office of the Corporation Counsel has been very diligent in examining these legal structures to determine what systemic and internal changes are necessary to support efficient and effective implementation. Recognizing that safety, support and permanency for children is the primary mission of the Court plan, OCC has taken immediate steps to address its legal support to the District's Child Welfare Agency, as you heard from Dr. Golden. In partnership with CFSA, we have accomplished dramatic reform by more than doubling the number of attorneys assigned to the Legal Services Unit at CFSA. To further assess the most appropriate and efficient legal structure for the agency, the District has engaged the American Bar Association to conduct a staffing study for the Legal Services Unit at UFSA. Like CFSA, OCC is awaiting the final results of the ABA staffing study to finalize the design of our legal structure. Preliminary discussions suggest that the ABA will recommend vertical prosecution to allow attorneys to have a greater knowledge of their cases and build stronger relationships with the judicial teams and social workers. OCC and the CFSA have already started to implement the vertical prosecution structure as individual assistant corporation counsel are beginning to handle cases from just after initial hearing through to permanency decisions. One of the most significant changes for our office has been the full co-location of the Abuse and Neglect Assistant Corporation Counsel at CFSA to facilitate and improve communication and collaboration among attorneys and social workers. Attorneys and social workers are already, we believe, experiencing the benefits of coordinated case management in advance of hearings that is permitted by co-location. While permanency and safety for children are the main goals of the Family Court Act and the Court's implementation plan, strengthening families in trouble and deciding disputes among families fairly are also stated objectives of the plan. Consequently, the Family Court Act and the new one judge/one family concept required by the act has wide reaching effects on many divisions and sections of the Office of the Corporation Counsel. The Juvenile Section, Domestic Violence Unit, Child Support Enforcement Division, and Mental Health Division also have responsibility in the District of Columbia to handle matters affecting children and families and are significantly impacted by the new legislation. It is apparent that as the judicial resources have and are expected to increase under the new legislation, additional staff and resources in other divisions and sections of our office beyond abuse and neglect will be needed for our office to adequately support the Family Court one judge/one family model. Representatives of the various divisions and sections have been working diligently with the Court and key stakeholders to develop a coordinated resolution of issues that arise as we transition to this new system. For example, representatives from the Child Support Enforcement Division have been working with a court appointed committee to recommend how the Family Court can best utilize magistrate judges for child support in light of the new one judge/one family approach. Various models identifying the point of entry for the family and the number of magistrate judges to serve child support enforcement cases are being examined to determine the most appropriate modification of the legal structure of our office to meet the needs of the Court. Similarly, representatives from the OCC Juvenile Section have been participating in numerous working groups with the Court to anticipate the breadth of the impact of the Family Court Act and the one judge/one family concept on the juvenile justice system. Our office has exclusive jurisdiction over the prosecution of juvenile delinquency cases in the District of Columbia. The present staffing levels in the juvenile section only ensure that four designated juvenile courtrooms are continuously covered. These courtrooms include two trial courtrooms, the Juvenile Drug Court and the arraignments or new referral courtroom. While it may appear that there could be significant overlap in our office's representation of the Family Court, a closer look reveals that the one judge/one family concept involves a complex set of issues that require an in-depth analysis by all stakeholders, as definite development of a set of defined criteria to assist the Court in determining the most appropriate application of the model that is in the best interest of children. Moreover, legal restrictions requiring the confidentiality of juvenile and mental health records also restrict intra and inter agency collaboration and joint multi-agency hearings. In order for agencies and parties to share information and allow the one judge/one family process to operate in an effective manner, various statutes will need to be amended. We are working diligently with the Court and various stakeholders to do that. Mrs. Morella. May I ask you to kind of sum up, please? Ms. Teal. Yes. I echo Dr. Golden's comments about entering a new era of collaboration with the Court. I think we are well on the way to doing that. I would be happy to answer any questions you have. [The prepared statement of Ms. Teal follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.070 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.071 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.072 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.073 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.074 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.075 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.076 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5723.077 Mrs. Morella. The only reason I was rushing you was because we have a vote where I have about 8 minutes left to get over there. I should do that but I don't want to have a recess. What I will do is I will not return but I will take the liberty of giving Ms. Norton 15 minutes to sum up the questions. I will thank our minority committee staff, Jean Gosa, and Jon Bouker; majority staff, Russell Smith, Robert White, Matt Batt, Shalley Kim, Heea Vazirani-Fales, Dr. Cassie Statuto-Bevin, with Mr. DeLay who has been following closely. I thought your testimonies were all great. I would love to submit some questions to you too. I am certainly glad you are working out those border agreements, Dr. Golden, with Maryland. Obviously we have in front of us, too, articles from the Washington Post about what was happening with Maryland returning the foster children to the District of Columbia. Are there enough foster homes, kinship homes, residential homes to place these children? Dr. Golden. As you saw in the final article in the Post, in fact children continue to be in the homes in Maryland, both kinship and foster family homes. Our agreements for the future have to do with several things. First of all, they have to do with making sure children can move promptly to kinship homes. One of the problems in the past--an enormous burden for the Superior Court--has been there might be an appropriate home for a child with a grandmother who lives in Prince George's County. The child has been there every weekend of their life but in the past, one of the things that created problems both for Maryland and the District, there has been a very cumbersome, bureaucratic process. So we might have that child in a group home in the District waiting for months for the process to be approved to live with their grandmother. The agreements we are in the process of reaching with Maryland--and I want to express my appreciation, particularly for Cabinet Secretary Imelda Johnson, who has been wonderful to negotiate with--we think we will have an agreement within days where we can place a child with a family member in Maryland the same way we could in the District or Maryland could with a Maryland child based on an immediate check of home safety and Child Protective Service clearance but not months of bureaucracy. That will be wonderful. We also believe we are reaching the right kind of agreement about other family homes that might be appropriate for children in the District, so we are very excited. Mrs. Morella. Please let me know as soon as you reach that agreement. It would be great to talk about the regional cooperation we experience. One final question, how about your recruiting and retaining social workers? I know that is a major problem. Does anyone want to comment on that? Dr. Golden. It is an area where we have made important progress but we have a lot more to do. We are currently at about 250 social workers, Masters and BSW qualified, about 27 more at the end of April who we had on board as trainees but were not yet licensed and we have to get them licensed to be able to carry cases. We are getting much better at doing that quickly within a 90-day period. Our goal is 300 licensed social workers by the end of the year. We have done intensive recruiting this spring with Masters and Bachelor's level programs, so we have many people planning to start in June-July August. We were also on the point of signing agreement with the Federal Public Health Service because there are social workers who are within the commissioned Corps who can be detailed to us for a period of 2 to 3 years. That will be very helpful. We are also very proud we have just received a grant from the Annie Casey Foundation to do targeted recruiting of social workers nationally. We hope to be able to learn some things useful to child welfare agencies across the country because it is a national problem. I would say we are at the point of making a difference but we are not finished yet. Mrs. Morella. It sounds again like it is a good work in progress. Thank you all very much, Mr. Harlan, Dr. Golden and Ms. Teal. I will now defer for the rest of the hearing to the ranking member. Ms. Norton [presiding]. Thank you, Madam Chair. To pick up on the issue of the Maryland border agreement the Chair raised, Ms. Golden, I don't think bureaucracy was the only problem. Maryland, I think, may have had a number of different concerns and I am not sure all of them were valid. One of them was certainly valid and that was, that the District was not supervising these children in the State of Maryland, anymore than the District was supervising the children in the District of Columbia. That is to say that the number of visits apparently if you were in Maryland, Maryland would expect to be made were not being made by the District of children in Maryland, so Maryland raised the notion about whether or not we were simply dumping these children in Maryland where you rightly say they had every reason to be given family and other connections and given the fact the District of Columbia could never, could never take care of all the children in need. Particularly in light of what you just said about social workers, I would like to know whether or not we are going to live up to what Maryland does for its own children, to make the kind of visits so that we will not get into that kind of controversy. I am a whole lot less concerned about bureaucracy and about some concerns Maryland may have raised that I don't agree with. One concern they raised I very much agree with because I don't think it is Maryland alone, I think it was D.C. as well. I still don't know how Maryland can get social workers to visit with greater frequency than the District can, and the kind of frequency Maryland requires. The standards problem raises a very serious concern. You talk about 90 days to get a license, who cares? Pending a license, can the social workers be on the job or are we going to fall back into a problem that has been a major problem for CFSA, the social work problem to which all other problems are traceable? Dr. Golden. Let me comment on each of those issues. First, on visits in general and in Maryland and how we in Maryland are working together on them and then on the licensing issues. We are tracking both our ability to visit children and other key aspects of case management--like how we are doing on case plans and investigations--as part of our 1 year measurement from the court monitor. May 31 was the date at which the court monitor will be reviewing all those things. We are looking at where we are. In some areas we have truly dramatic improvements. For example, at the front of the system, the investigations of abuse neglect where we have concentrated resources and done early improvements, we have gone from about more than 800 investigations last year at this time, were backlogged more than 30 days. Now we are down to about 150 which is well below the target, much better than the target that the court monitor set for us. So we have made dramatic improvements in some areas and in other areas, while we expect to see some improvement, we won't be where we hoped to be but we are on the right track. We discussed at length with Maryland some of the issues around visiting and oversight. I think what we both brought to the table is we both acknowledge the areas where both jurisdictions have to do some more work. We have committed some resources to assist Prince George's County because there are pieces of the process that are their's to do that they were not fully able to carry out and we have been able to make some commitments in that regard. For example, on the intake side, investigations, they actually have worse caseloads for their social workers than we do. We needed to make sure they were able to promptly investigate should there be a report of abuse or neglect in a grandmother's home that a child is with. So we have done some things to address that. On our side we have made the commitment to appropriate oversight and to report to them monthly. I think what I want to report I am particularly pleased with is we have all come to the table with the well being of Maryland and District children foremost in our minds and with making the arrangements that will work best for that, even if it involves some sharing or some working together of a kind that didn't happen in the past. Ms. Norton. I am real pleased that you indicated on the record there will be a border agreement ``within days.'' Dr. Golden. An interim agreement actually. The ``within days'' will not be the final border agreement. Ms. Norton. Well, that means you are on your way and I congratulate you on that. What progress have you made in complying with the Adoption and Safe Families Act? Dr. Golden. We are making important progress in a number of areas. Again, I would say what we will know after we look at this first year's review how far we have come from the baseline but we are not going to be all the way to where we need to be in 1 year. As a couple of examples, I highlighted the increase in adoptions in my testimony. That is one of the areas where we are seeing some dramatic success. We are also focusing on some of the key issues in terms of legal action where we need to work with the court. For example, filing termination of parental rights at appropriate times, we have made some dramatic changes in that. I know there were earlier questions for Judge Satterfield about outcome measures. Judge Satterfield and I have talked about how to look across the outcome measures we are using that because they are identified by the Federal Government, identified by the Federal court, or our own priorities, and the outcome measures for the court to pick the ones we want to work on in a shared way to measure information. We are making progress but we are not going to be everywhere we need to be after 1 year. Ms. Norton. Do I understand that you have met the mandate of the Family Court Act that representatives will be onsite to coordinate social services and provide information to judges about the availability of those services? Two, has the Mayor appointed a social services liaison with the Family Court for coordinating delivery of services? Dr. Golden. Those provisions are in process; they are not finished yet. Deputy Mayor Graham is the lead. We have done some important work in bringing the multiple agencies together, including the Department of Mental Health in our deliberations around services for children and which cases to transfer. So we have begun that. We haven't yet done the job descriptions, identified the liaisons and located them onsite but we are talking about that in process and also discussing the space issues with the court. Ms. Norton. I have to alert you, as far as Mr. DeLay and I were concerned, that was an absolutely critical part. We weren't just about a court and if we have judges who were able to testify today they are on target on their transition plan, they are not behind, I would think getting these staff in place would not be the most cumbersome part of the transition we are thinking about. They have ten judges, I understand, already. I think they testified they are down to only 31? Dr. Golden. I think they will be after the transition is complete. That is right, 31 plus the Family Court judges, 31 outside and 15 Family Court. Ms. Norton. We really were not very interested in a court except insofar as the Court was ready to work with you, so I am going to have to ask, the Mayor has not appointed a social services liaison for the court? What does that take? That is not the hardest part of that. Dr. Golden. I will take that back. We have been working together, the Deputy Mayor's Office has been the lead on the social services linkages and we have been driving the key operational pieces with the child abuse and neglect portion of the Family Court. We have been talking frequently. An example of how it has worked is that one of the big operational questions was how do we pick which cases move from those judges outside the Family Court into the court. With the Deputy Mayor's leadership, we involved a range of agencies, not just CFSA, so we could identify cases where the child would benefit from coming into the Family Court because we could then look at those issues intensively. So we have been working together but we haven't physically moved people over to the Family Court. I hear the comment that working with the Court on space and on identifying the people for the physical move is important to the committee but I would note the work has been happening. Ms. Norton. Have you been involved in the space? Dr. Golden. We have been asked for comments and involved in the conversations. Ms. Norton. Would you reply to the record within 30 days with when a social services liaison with the Family Court will be appointed for the purpose of coordinating the delivery of services? Without that person in place, I don't see how the rest--you can't do this. You have an overwhelming job. I can think of no more difficult a job in the city government than what you have. You are proceeding forthwith here. You should not be the person who has to worry about the coordination of these services. You are quite right, it is not just CSFA. It is a tough job. The Mayor needs to appoint somebody right away to do that job or the court is going to be sitting there without what it takes to make all we have done with the court work. This is very important and I am very concerned. In 30 days we need to know when that person will be onsite and you need to report that date to us, to the record and my staff will look to see that date has been recorded. Dr. Golden. We will make that report. I would note I don't think the work has been slowed down because people have been doing the work collegially but I share the view that we need to make that appointment. Ms. Norton. If there is not a person in charge, as far as I am concerned there is not a person in charge of that very important service delivery component liaison with the court, it is not going to happen. Unless there is somebody accountable for making sure the court has availability so the court can say, this, that or the other. We are dealing with a court that sometimes in light of the lack of service knowledge, has had to put children in Oak Hill because nobody could tell them where to find services in the District of Columbia. Congress is going to be awfully displeased if the city side of this is missing and you cannot do that, you should not be called upon to do that. The statute says, ``appoint'' somebody to do that. You can't tell me when somebody will be appointed. You have 30 days to tell the committee when somebody will be appointed. Just carry that back. I know that is not your job to appoint somebody. Let me quickly ask two more questions. Mr. Harlan, you mentioned the Congress had been particularly concerned about the reduction in police overtime and you seem to indicate some work had been done on that. We are very interested in that issue. That is one of the great waste of resources the District hasn't dealt with. What has been the reduction, if any, in police overtime wasted in the courts? What has been the progress of the U.S. Attorney and the courts in dealing with this complicated issue? Mr. Harlan. We have not done a followup study to know the exact numbers, Ms. Norton. I will tell you there has been progress. I believe Judge King referenced that progress in his testimony this morning. It is like so many things, it is going to take a continued focus, a continued effort to get these agencies to work together and to receive and obtain the results of reduction of police overtime that is so necessary. The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council is in an excellent position to implement this across the judicial system. I have just heard they have now hired an executive director for the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council which is good news because it needs proper staff. I would hope that progress would continue. To be specific, I just don't have the information for you. Ms. Norton. It may be that Mr. Harlan, whom I want to congratulate on the record and commend for the most extraordinary work he has done on the Family Court matter which he worked on long before it came to the attention of the Congress or any of us, among other things. It may be that if he has some information from the Council of Court Excellence, we could get that information. I appreciate you raised it and it is a very important issue. The Family Court Act that we recently passed requires that within 6 months of the enactment, the Mayor must submit a plan for integrating computer systems with those of the court. We just learned we don't have a Family Court Services Liaison. Does that mean this matter of integrating computer systems has not begun yet? Dr. Golden. No. Ms. Norton. No later than July 8, 2002. Dr. Golden. That is well on track. The leadership is with the District's Chief Technology Officer and the Deputy Mayor for Children and Families. They are working together on it. The representatives of both offices are here today. Both the computer people have been talking with the court but also the program people to discuss what the requirements are. I know our program people have been involved in saying what we need. The group has been looking at short term and longer term solutions because there are very immediate things that we need to connect like having information on court hearing dates and then the much broader connections envisaged in the statute. That effort is moving along with that leadership by both the technology side and the Deputy Mayor for Children and Families. Ms. Norton. We have a very good Technology Office despite that everyone knows what happened to DMV. If that happened to the court, we would all be in a lot of trouble and it happens because computers do that to us. I very much appreciate what you said about short term and long term. If DMV had assumed error, as we now must if we put computers in place, then it would have had an alternative plan. This is very difficult, what you have to do. In fact, everything you have to do in Child and Family Services and with the court is just awesome. If you hear some criticism from us, please understand what you are having to do is very much akin to starting new. You would be better off if you started anew because you wouldn't have to unravel so much mess. It is happening with the court and it is happening here. We can see very substantial progress. Dr. Golden. Thank you. Ms. Norton. I questioned the court about alternative space, not because the court isn't doing all it can do but because we would understand this if we were in private business. If you are in private business, you wouldn't leave it to the construction as to whether you are going to open. You have to open and see because there is a bottom line. We don't have any bottom line except the children and they will have to wait. When you say short term and long term on these computers, let me just encourage you have in place something that if it doesn't click, what you are doing is much harder than what the District Government is doing because you are taking one branch of government and trying to connect it with another branch of government. If it doesn't click, your notion of a short term approach while the long term computer hookup is going on, is very, very wise. Let me congratulate you on your work, Ms. Golden. It is a work in which many before you have failed, not because they haven't tried very, very seriously to make this system work. People are failing all over the country. We don't see this as a District of Columbia problem. We know how to read what is happening to family courts and to troubled families all over the United States. Yet our job is to put pressure on ourselves and also on you to just get it right and do it better. We are very pleased with the progress that has been made. I am very proud that the District now is in control again of Family and Child Services but of all of the agencies that were put in receivership. That is a monumental achievement. The mayor and his administration deserve a lot of credit for having the credibility to get these back from the courts, to show we could do it even better than the courts. He deserves praise and he can get that praise only if he gets it through you. The court is on track on its transition. I am very pleased with that and if you proceed as you are now and get that Family Services Coordinator in place, may be the most important thing you could do for the court. If that is missing, no testimony we heard from the Court today will matter. It will be callosal criticism from the Congress. If we can just turn our attention to that part of it, stressing not your attention, then it does seem to me this hearing has demonstrated that both the court and CSFA are on their way to reinventing a new system for our vulnerable children and families. We appreciate all the work you have done. On behalf of the Chair who alone has the power and authority to either conduct or adjourn this hearing, she had indicated that when I got through it would be adjourned, so Mrs. Morella says the hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 1:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]