Director's Message

The federal Judiciary faces a broad range of administrative issues each year. Some are common in every year. Some emerge during the year. Some grow in importance over the years, particularly when unresolved in prior years. This message summarizes the most pressing issues we faced in 2007. The report that follows provides a more detailed review of the many issues we confronted.

In last year's Annual Report, I stated that we were very fortunate to have the steady leadership of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., during a year of transition within the Judiciary. Again in 2007, he clearly and concisely established the Judiciary's highest administrative priority for the year: the restoration of salaries of our judges. This did not come as news to those within the Judiciary, of course. It is one of our issues that has grown in importance with each passing year of declining real pay. But by singling out the issue in his 2006 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, the Chief Justice focused attention on the problem and enabled very substantial progress to be made in 2007 on resolving it.

Thanks to the concentrated efforts of the Ad Hoc Committee of Judges on Judicial Salary Restoration (appointed by the Chief Justice), several Justices of the Supreme Court, and the vast support of a wide range of associations and a coalition of interest groups, as well as editorial support from dozens of newspapers across the country, there are bi-partisan leadership co-sponsored bills pending in both chambers of Congress. These bills would provide significant salary restoration to federal judges, would delink judges' salaries from those of Members of Congress, and, in the case of the House version of the bill, would solve the problem of eroding pay in the future by allowing the judges' salaries to increase annually by the average cost-of-living adjustment received by all other federal employees currently on the General Schedule. Among the scores of co-sponsors on these bills are Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate, and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Minority Leader John Boehner in the House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also supports the legislation. This bicameral leadership has pledged to try to pass this vital legislation in 2008. We will continue to work with the leadership in 2008 to remove this issue from our list of recurring, and growing, concerns.

One of the issues we confront annually, of course, is securing the Judiciary's funding from Congress. I am pleased to report that the Judiciary fared very well in its FY 2008 appropriations from Congress. The Judiciary received $6.246 billion for 2008, including $25 million designated as emergency spending to address workload needs associated with increased immigration enforcement. This represents a 4.5 percent increase over fiscal year 2007 appropriations and is an excellent funding level in the midst of the contentious overall budget process between the Congress and the President. The success achieved by our financial staff and the efforts of the Judicial Conference's Budget Committee reflect very favorably on the Judiciary's credibility with Congress and on our relationship with our appropriators.

The Judiciary's recent budget successes can be attributed in part to its own cost containment efforts. In September 2007, the Judicial Conference approved recommendations to reduce the rate of growth in compensation for court staff, including chambers law clerks. The Conference also approved the provision of rent allotments to each circuit judicial council, which will limit the space that can be approved each year based on the amount the Judiciary can afford nationally in new rental costs. The Judiciary's National Rent Validation Program also exposed overcharges and obtained substantial rent credits and long-term savings on the General Services Administration rent bill. As a result of these efforts, the gap between our estimated long-range budget requirements and actual funding levels has narrowed. We must remain diligent, however, in reducing the gap. We will continue to bring our efforts to the attention of our appropriators in Congress.

Similarly, the Judiciary demonstrated its commitment to maintaining integrity within the branch in 2007. The Judicial Conference has now implemented 8 of the 12 recommendations of the Report on the Implementation of the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980, chaired by Justice Stephen Breyer. They include urging the circuit councils to encourage their district courts to form committees of local lawyers to serve as intermediaries between individual lawyers and the formal complaint process, and establishing programs to provide assistance to chief judges who confront problematic behavior by colleagues on their courts and to judges who may be disabled or have other medical problems affecting their work. The remaining four recommendations are scheduled to be considered at the March 2008 meeting of the Judicial Conference.

These types of self-governing measures and cost-containment initiatives, coupled with the comprehensive audit program at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) will continue to render unnecessary intrusions by the other branches of government into the management of the Judiciary. These initiatives are particularly beneficial when the Judiciary undertakes them on its own rather than under pressure from the other branches. With regard to our relations with the other two branches of government, the AO has made progress in improving inter-branch communication and will work on ways to advance those improvements.

We are also grateful to Congress for passing the Court Security bill in 2007 after years of working on the measure and to the President for signing it into law. The bill, among other things, requires the Director of the U.S. Marshals Service to consult with the Judicial Conference on a continuing basis regarding the security needs of the Judiciary, provides authority to redact sensitive information from Financial Disclosure Reports until 2011, and creates a penalty for filing false claims and for the slander of title against federal judges. Congress changed the "FEGLI-fix" provision by removing its application to bankruptcy and territorial judges in the bill just before its passage because of a procedural budgetary concern, however, and we will vigorously seek this important remedial provision in 2008.

Finally, I would like to express my appreciation, as well as that of Deputy Director Jill Sayenga, to the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee of judges and leaders from the courts who provided practical and achievable recommendations to us on how to improve both the services of the AO to, and our working relationship with, the courts. The Advisory Committee focused on, among other things, improving how the AO receives input from the courts, and how we utilize that advice to guide and facilitate the development of the Judiciary's policies and programs. We are now following the Advisory Committee's recommendations, including a review of the deployment of our workforce and internal operations. We have teams of AO managers to plan and implement the improvements. We are also reviewing the AO's court advisory groups and streamlining our communications and working procedures. We will report on specific initiatives and improvements when they are finalized this year.

The AO also contained its internal expenses in 2007 through a hiring freeze, and later in the year by filling vacancies only after careful consideration and usually by moving staff within our own ranks. Notwithstanding the staff reductions at the AO, through efficient management and dedicated work, we believe that we have been responsive to concerns the courts have expressed without sacrificing service to them.

I look forward to your reactions to this Report and to working with you in 2008.

James C. Duff