The Massachusetts judiciary would become subject to civilian oversight — ending generations of administration exclusively by judges — and written recommendations for applicants to state jobs would be barred from consideration until the final stages of the selection process under a plan that has been filed by House and Senate negotiators.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo said in a phone interview with the State House News Service he hopes the bill represents a "long-term" shift in the operation of the 319-year-old court system that results in a more efficient and effective judiciary.
"I believe people are going to see this as a great piece of legislation and a piece that really addresses an issue in the long-term. I hope that we're preparing our court system for decades to come," he said.
The bill was the culmination of reform efforts that originated in November, when an independent investigator — Paul Ware _ issued a report that catalogued "rampant" patronage in the state Probation Department, an arm of the judiciary, and much of it driven by lawmakers.
DeLeo was named in the report as one of many lawmakers who made hiring recommendations to the agency.
The report did not cite any specific patronage hirings or recommendations involving Cape Ann lawmakers, past or present. But the potential changes also come as the Trial Court system wrestles with a $21 million budget shortfall with a plan that includes a shutdown of the Gloucester District Court in a move to consolidate its operations and services into the expanded new court facilities in Salem.
Gloucester state lawmakers Bruce Tarr, the Republican Senate majority leader, and Ann-Margaret Ferrante, the second-term Democratic who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, are actively fighting the local court's proposed closure.
DeLeo told the News Service he hopes the compromise bill on the judiciary's leadership and management shows that lawmakers are making a serious effort to address allegations in the Ware report.
"I'm hopeful that people will understand that we took the report very seriously in terms of the various accusations that were made within the Ware report and that as I stated when it came out, we acted upon it," he said. "We acted upon it in a strong enough method and a comprehensive method to show that we did take it seriously."
The bill requires that written job recommendations for applicants to state jobs be shielded from hiring authorities until the final stages of their application process. The intent, supporters say, is to ensure that the backing of powerful officials doesn't influence hiring decisions, at least in the early-going of an applicant's bid. Recommendations submitted for successful candidates would be made public.
The final version of the proposal drops a House provision that would have also barred verbal recommendations.
The bill also leaves the Probation Department within the judiciary, affirming lawmakers' rejection of a proposal by Gov. Deval Patrick to take control of the troubled agency, which proved to be a non-starter among legislators.
"I'm not sure what the governor intends to do," DeLeo said, adding that he is hopeful the governor has been convinced that "the judiciary is the right place for the Probation Department."
The plan, which DeLeo first outlined in a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce in March, would replace the courts' current top administrator - a judge selected by the Supreme Judicial Court — with a professional administrator who would handle leases, budgeting and other non-judicial functions.
Chief Justice of Administration and Management Robert Mulligan currently fills that role; Mulligan is the justice who has outlined the plan for the court's consolidation and the Gloucester court's proposed closure.
The civilian administrator, who would also be selected by the SJC, would work alongside a chief justice of the Trial Court, who would handle scheduling, disciplinary matters and other judicial functions.
Although most of the bill takes effect on July 1, 2012, provisions permit the judiciary to hire an administrator in advance.
Sen. Cynthia Creem, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, said the conferees struggled in some instances to decide what type of decisions to put into the hands of a new court administrator, and which ones to leave to the judges.
"When we got together, we had trouble deciding what was a court administrator decision was and what was a judicial decision," she said, "so we ended up having both of them sign off on a lot of the stuff."
The advent of a civilian administrator overseeing the business functions of the court was touted by backers as a way to ensure that judges focus on adjudicating while professional administrators worked on streamlining the judiciary's vast bureaucracy — with 101 current courthouses that see about 40,000 civilians a day enter their doors.
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