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Letter to the Honorable Frank R. Wolf 1 (2001)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo9041 and id is 1 raw text is: Honorable Frank R. Wolf Chairman Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Committee on Appropriations U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Mr. Chairman: The conference report that accompanies the bill making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the judiciary, and related agencies for 2001 directs the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to review and comment on a 2000 study, Independent Assessment of the Judiciary's Space and Facilities Program, prepared by Ernst & Young (U.S. House of Representatives, conference report to accompany H.R. 4942, Report 106-1005, October 2000, pp. 287-288). This letter is CBO's response. The General Accounting Office (GAO) also reviewed and commented on the Ernst & Young study in December 2000 (see General Accounting Office, Courthouse Construction: Sufficient Data andAnalysis Would Help Resolve the Courtroom-Sharing Issue, GAO-01-70, December 2000; see also Courthouse Construction: Better Courtroom Use Data Could Enhance Facility Planning and Decisionmaking, GAO/GGD-97-39, May 1997). CBO's review is confined to the part of the Ernst & Young study that covers a subject CBO has addressed in earlier work: courtroom sharing. In April 2000, CBO issued The One-Courtroom, One-Judge Policy: A Preliminary Review. That report-prepared at the request of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, Hazardous Materials, and Pipeline Transportation of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure-concludes that more courtroom sharing would not necessarily cause trial delays, as some people have contended. The Ernst & Young study urges the judiciary to keep its national policy of one courtroom per active judge, but it goes on to recommend additional sharing of court space among senior judges and the consideration of opportunities for sharing among otherjudges. In particular, it indicates that larger courthouses offer the potential for more sharing. The study also notes that courtroom sharing could reduce construction requirements and produce substantial savings. But it warns that using courtroom sharing as an alternative to the construction of additional court space could result in having too few courtrooms. Wise policy decisions, according to Ernst & Young, would ensure that the judiciary neither overbuilds nor underbuilds court space.

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