Report 2019-302 Recommendation 3 Responses

Report 2019-302: Judicial Council of California (Release Date: December 2019)

Recommendation #3 To: Judicial Council of California

To ensure that it complies with state law, maintains appropriate transparency, and provides the Legislature with all legally required information regarding its contracting and procurements, the Judicial Council should by February 2020 develop and implement a method to ensure that it includes in its reports all required contract amendment information related to the Superior Courts.

6-Month Agency Response

The Council's staff has completed the necessary adjustments to the Phoenix system to address this finding. The previous configuration did not always capture the descriptions of the specific goods or services a court had procured when the associated contract was not amended. For additional clarity, the new configuration also changed the name of the "Goods/Services (New)" column (column H) to "Goods/Services". The updated report will be published as part of the July 2020 report and is attached for your reference.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Fully Implemented

60-Day Agency Response

The Judicial Council's staff are analyzing the current configuration within the Phoenix Financial System to improve the reporting of contract amendments pertaining to the Superior Courts. The expectation is to implement the configuration changes prior to our next semi-annual report in August 2020 (covering the period between January 1 through June 30, 2020). Although the Judicial Council staff are confident that the configuration changes will fully address reporting requirements going forward, it is unknown, at this point, whether the configuration changes can be applied retroactively. As a result, the August 2020 report may contain only partially corrected data.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2019-302

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.