GENERAL COMMITTEE

 

 

 

 

 

TO:

Mayor and Members of Council

 

 

 

 

FROM:

Andy Taylor, Commissioner of Corporate Services

 

 

 

 

PREPARED BY:

Joel Lustig, Director of Financial and Client Services

 

 

 

 

DATE OF MEETING:

2005-Nov-7

 

 

 

 

SUBJECT:

Court Services Review Update

 

 

 

 

RECOMMENDATION:

 

THAT the report dated November 7, 2005 entitled “Court Services Review Update” be received;

 

AND THAT staff will report back to Council on the recommendations that will be included in the final Court Services Review report.

 

PURPOSE:

This report is to update Council on the status of the York Region Court Services Review.

 

BACKGROUND:

 

Province Transfers Court Administration to Municipalities

In 1998 the Province communicated its intent to devolve Court Administration to the municipal level.  In 1999, York Region and the nine (9) Area Municipalities within it (Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, King, Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and Whitchurch-Stouffville) partnered to assume the responsibility, as permitted under the Provincial Offenses Act (POA).  York Region agreed to administer Court Services on behalf of all parties.  Some Provincial staff related to Court Services were transferred to the Region, and in some cases Area Municipalities that had in-house prosecutorial staff also transferred their staff to the Region (while maintaining the right to perform their own prosecutions when/if they so chose). 

Three agreements provided the framework for transfer, governance, services and financial arrangements, namely:

1        The Memorandum of Understanding with the Province, transferring Court Administration to all the municipalities in York Region

2        The Local Side Agreement that deals with matters that are specific to this judicial district

3        The Inter-municipal Agreement, whereby all municipalities in the Region form a Joint Board of Management to oversee their responsibilities under the program.

 

The Inter-municipal Joint Board of Management is comprised of ten representatives – one each from the nine Area Municipalities and one from the Region.  The Court Services Branch within the Corporate Services Department of the Region administers the program.  Under the agreements, all expenses are borne by the Region, the Region retains revenues from tickets issued by York Regional Police, and the Area Municipalities share in OPP ticket and all other revenue proportionate to their respective annual Regional tax levy such as bylaw enforcement.

The Court Services Branch has two key Sections - Court Administration and Prosecutions.  There are currently two Court locations – Newmarket & Richmond Hill. 

 

Current State

For the past six years, the Municipal Court Services have been operating under the aforementioned structure. During that time the following issues have been identified:

·        Overall volume of charges

·        Caseload of prosecutions and processing time

·        Availability of Justices of the Peace and court time

·        Costs associated with the new Court House in Richmond Hill

·        Amount of consultation and interaction in general between the Court Services Branch and Area Municipalities

·        Outstanding collections

·        Adequacy of fines

·        Amount and flow of information and reports

·        Constraints related to use of the Province’s Integrated Court Offences Network technology,

·        Escalating Court Services costs and a current “freeze” on revenues to Area Municipalities.

 

Development of a Court Services Review

In December 2004 at the Area Municipal CAO’s Meeting it was agreed that a review of the court services system would be conducted. In May of this year, an RFP was issued by the Town of Markham, on behalf of the area Municipal CAO’s, for an independent Review of the Court Services program administered by the Region. The overall purpose of the Court Services Review was to achieve a better functioning Court Services program (in terms of efficiencies, economies and effectiveness). The Review focuses on five key areas;

  1. The effectiveness and efficiency of the Court Services organization.
  2. The appropriateness and effectiveness of the governance structure including relationships, roles and responsibilities, lines of authority.
  3. A benchmarking exercise with relevant Ontario jurisdictions to identify best practices and key performance indicators.
  4. Development of long-range projections of growth in service demand and associated capacity requirements.
  5. The appropriateness of the financial arrangements, including the inter-municipal arrangement and the York Region and MAG arrangement.  

In addition to five key areas of focus, there are three distinct components to this review;

1.      Existing Court Services

How efficient is the Court Services operations, recommendations for improvement to existing operations and recommendations for dealing with current backlogs.

2.      External Benchmarking

A comparison of benchmark organizations, up to five (5) meaningful key performance indicators (KPI’s) for which data is available currently and identify of current best practices.

3.      Future Court Services

A cost/benefit assessment of Service Level enhancements put forward by Area Municipalities and the Region. A review of statistics related to volumes processed/handled within York Region Court Services. A five year growth plan that includes projected future internal and/or external resource requirements.

 

Three RFP submissions were received. The Core Evaluation Team evaluated the submissions based on the pre-determined process and criteria and selected the appropriate proponent. The Team together with the CAO Joint Steering Committee members from Aurora, Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Whitchurch-Stouffville and York Region, all recommended awarding the RFP to PSTG Consulting.

 

At the project kickoff meeting with PSTG, a workplan and approach was agreed upon along with a project completion timeline. A CAO’s workshop was held on August 4 and over 50 stakeholder interviews were conducted by PSTG over the last few months. Bi-weekly status reports were circulated to the members of the CAO Joint Steering Committee during the review process.

 

The interim report was circulated to the CAO’s on October 7 for their review.  On October 31 PSTG reviewed the highlights of the interim report and solicited feedback on the opportunities identified in the report. A set of next steps were developed along with a corresponding timeline in an effort to develop a final report for December 7, 2005.

 

INTERIM REPORT FINDINGS:

 

Summarized below are the findings from the interim report on the five key areas set out in the initial RFP:

 

  1. The effectiveness and efficiency of the Court Services organization.

 

Current Status

a.     Outstanding revenues of $21.8 million, most of which were handed down from the province six years ago.

b.    Court Staff have different reporting relationships depending on the site and responsibility and accountability for financial processes, e.g. accounting and collections functions, are currently fragmented across both sites. 

c.     There is an increasing trend towards trial requests, lack of available Justice of the Peace resources.

d.    Municipalities stated the strength of their By-law compliance strategies were diminished by the number of cases that do not result in convictions and/or reduced fines for repeat offenders.

 

Opportunities

a.     Consolidate operations to one site location for ticket processing, incoming calls, etc., while operating a satellite court for By-law and possible other OPP trials. Or fully consolidated facility to operate in one location.

b.    Standardize and streamline management structure of POA Court Services Operations.

c.     Make most efficient use of the limited time that prosecutors have to prepare their cases and develop a common format, templates for prosecution briefs.

d.    Identify those cases that may be deemed a compliance priority.

e.     Municipalities can hire private prosecutors (contract or staff) to better support their compliance strategies.

f.      In the longer term, discuss with other municipalities and Municipal Affairs the modernization of the By-law compliance and sanction regime, e.g., increase fines, use of administrative fines, etc..

 

  1. The appropriateness and effectiveness of the governance structure, including relationships, roles and responsibilities and lines of authority.

 

Current Status

a.     The accountability, roles and responsibilities for the Joint Municipal Board are not well defined in the Inter-Municipal Agreement (IMA).   

b.    Redundancy and lack of clarity of governance model

c.     The relations between the Board and the Region has deteriorated and become counterproductive.

d.    With the Board having its governance role, the POA operations has three reporting relations; the Region, Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG), and the Board. This is not effective for management of any organization.

 

Opportunities

a.     Modify the IMA to provide more precise definition of the roles, responsibilities and processes.

b.    Sunset the Board

c.     Status quo for the Board

 

  1. A benchmarking exercise with relevant Ontario jurisdictions to identify best practices and key performance indicators. Two measures were identified, Charges Per Clerk and Revenue per Charge. The final report will detail how York Region compares to other neighbouring court systems.

 

  1. Development of long-range projections of growth in service demand and associated capacity requirements.  To be addressed in the final report.

                                         

  1. The appropriateness of the financial arrangements, including the inter-municipal arrangement and the York Region and MAG arrangement.

 

 

Current Status

a.    York Region is unique in that it is the only region in the GTA and the Province that has been operating with a deficit budget on the POA administration. All other GTA POA jurisdictions use various types of net revenue distribution models.

b.    The net York Region POA system revenue is expected to continue to increase over the next five years to a point where the revenues will exceed their expenses.

c.    York Region’s Provincial Offences Court operation costs account for approximately 60% of the total revenues.  This appears to be significantly higher than most other benchmarked jurisdictions.

d.    The Region has flat-lined the revenue sharing for each Municipality whereas each Municipality receives a fix amount based on the 2003 revenues.

 

Opportunities

a.Status Quo

b.            Net Revenue Distribution Model

c.Flat Fee

 

Inter-Municipal Joint Board of Management

 

On October 27, 2005 the Board met to discuss the 2006 budget and other relevant issues, the following motions were carried:

 

  1. The Board approved the expenditures of $7.1million proposed in the Court Services 2006 Budget, including the conversion of six positions from temporary to permanent.
  2. The Board approved the total revenues shown in the Court Services 2006 Budget but continues to object to the flat-lining of revenue distribution to Area Municipalities.
  3. The Board requested that the Region’s Finance Department be asked in the future to re-state the budget numbers to clearly show how much of the revenue relates to York Regional Police Highway Traffic Act cases.
  4. The Board directed that staff review collections activity and investigate the possibility of reallocating some of the remaining positions, the funding for which is already contained in the 2005 budget, to collection work to increase the revenue expectations currently in the 2006 budget.

 

NEXT STEPS:

 

  1. PSTG to develop recommendations and a roadmap of implementation for the five key areas for inclusion in the draft final report.
  2. CAO review of Draft Final Report, December 7, 2005
  3. Present on the recommendations that will be included in the final Court Services Review report to the Region and local Councils.

 

FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS:

 

The financial impact of this review cannot be determined at this point in time.  Upon receipt of the final report staff will report back to Council on the financial implications.

 

 

BUSINESS UNITS CONSULTED AND AFFECTED:

 

None

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joel Lustig,

Director of Financial and Client Services

 

Andy Taylor,

Commissioner, Corporate Services

 

Q:\Finance and Administration\Finance\SHARED\2005 General Committee Finance\0538 Court Services Review.doc