Courts: personal services contracts.

The Trial Court Employment Protection and Governance Act establishes a trial court employee personnel system that provides authority to hire trial court personnel, regulates the classification and compensation of trial court employees, labor relations, and personnel files, and requires each trial court to establish a system of employment selection and advancement and an employment protection system. Existing law authorizes state agencies to use personal services contracts to achieve cost savings if specified standards are satisfied, including, among other things, the contract does not cause the displacement of civil service employees and the contract is awarded through a publicized, competitive bidding process. The State Personnel Board is required to review a proposed contract upon the request of an employee organization for compliance with those standards. This bill would establish specified standards if a trial court intends to enter into a contract for any services that are currently or customarily performed by that trial court's employees. Among other things, the bill would require the trial court to clearly demonstrate that the contract will result in actual overall cost savings to the trial court for the duration of the entire contract as compared with the trial court's actual costs of providing the same services. This bill would provide that these standards apply to any contract entered into on or after January 1, 2015. The bill would provide that its provisions do not apply to a contract under specified circumstances, including when services are incidental to a contract for the purchase or lease of real or personal property. This bill would require each trial court to provide a report by February 1, 2015, to the Chairperson of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee and the chairpersons of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Assembly Judiciary Committee if the trial court entered into a contract between July 1, 2014, and December 31, 2014, inclusive, for services that were provided or are customarily provided by its trial court employees if the contract has a term extending beyond March 31, 2015. This report would be required to include specified information relating to these contracts, including an analysis of whether the contract resulted in the displacement of trial court employees. The bill would provide that its provisions are severable.