The D.C. Court of Appeals is the highest court in the District of Columbia. Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Our objectives were to provide information on staffing and workload levels for the D.C. courts from 1989 through 1998, assess how the D.C. courts evaluate the sufficiency of their nonjudicial case processing staff levels, and compare the D.C. courts’ methodologies to other available methodologies. FTEs in the Superior Court increased by approximately 10 percent between fiscal years 1989 and 1990; declined, with some fluctuations, by about 6 percent through fiscal year 1997; then decreased by about 14 percent in fiscal year 1998. Cases available for disposition in the Superior Court decreased 2.8 percent during this period, while cases pending increased 36.5 percent. The Clerk of the Court of Appeals said that, as with the Superior Court, staffing decisions are made on a functional basis for each division of the court, rather than for the court as a whole. The federal court system uses a databased system to distribute resources to the U.S. Appellate, District, and Bankruptcy Courts, and the Probation and Pretrial Services Offices. Under this system, officials determine how much time is taken up by different types of cases in the court or courts under study. Conclusion

While D.C. court officials apparently consider caseload data in judging whether staffing levels are adequate, they have not measured the amount of time required by case processing staff to process differing types of cases nor used such data to determine whether the size of the courts’ workforce is inadequate, adequate, or excessive for the work of the courts. Workload and formula-based methods of assessing the adequacy of case processing staffing levels do exist and are in use in the federal and state courts. Recommendation

We recommend that the D.C. courts review the amount of time required to process different types of cases and analyze other elements of the courts’ workload to determine what staffing levels are sufficient to process the D.C. courts’ caseload. We are also providing copies to the District of Columbia courts, the National Center for State Courts, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. 3. 4. 7.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on personnel management in the District of Columbia (D.C.) courts, focusing on: (1) staffing and workload levels for the courts from 1989 through 1998; (2) how the courts evaluate the sufficiency of the levels of nonjudicial staff who work on processing and disposition of cases; and (3) a comparison of the D.C. courts' staffing methodology to other available methodologies.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) overall staffing levels in the D.C. courts increased between 1989 and 1990, declined slightly with some fluctuations through 1997, and then decreased below the 1989 level in 1998; (2) cases available for disposition increased slightly during this time in the D.C. Superior Court, the largest part of the courts, while its backlog increased substantially; (3) the cases available for disposition, and the backlog, of the far smaller D.C. Court of Appeals increased steadily over this period; (4) in both courts, the mix of different types of cases has changed over this period; (5) District of Columbia court officials said that they consider caseload data, along with other data, in judging whether staffing levels are appropriate; (6) according to court officials, staffing decisions are made on a year-by-year basis and are made individually for each division of the Superior Court and Court of Appeals; (7) the courts' methodology does not provide a comprehensive review of what staffing levels should be because it does not consider the amount of staff time and resources that are needed for case processing; (8) caseload trends alone do not show whether a unit is overstaffed or understaffed because they do not account for how much time is needed to process differing types of cases or for productivity improvements; (9) methodologies that consider the amount of staff time and resources required to process different types of cases in determining the sufficiency of staffing levels do exist; and (10) the National Center for State Courts has devised a database system to determine staffing levels needed for a given workload, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts uses a database system to distribute resources among the federal courts.