DCSS: Department 134 Court Changes

On January 8, 2025, your 005 Governing Board met with DCSS management to discuss court changes. Currently, the department has access to the courtroom “Department 134” for half a day to conduct hearings. Starting February 3, 2025, they will have full-day access to Department 134 for hearings, which will increase the court calendars from 14 to 20 (six new calendars). With this change, DCSS will be moving positions around from other teams. There will be five (5) Child Support Officers moved around, three (3) Office Specialists and one attorney added. These reallocations are based on team size, workload, and staff interest. UPE had concerns regarding the vacant spots on the teams and how that work would be covered. DCSS is awaiting their budget, which will determine if positions can be filled or added to support any needs resulting from this change.

UPE was also concerned about the impact on Legal Secretaries (LS), as there are no vacant positions, yet they are to handle documents and proceedings for six more calendars. One of the mitigation attempts is to have Office Specialists (OS) handle the calendar duties that are within their job scope, as not everything an LS does is within the scope of an OS.

Because this has not been implemented yet, UPE is meeting with DCSS again 30 days after implementation. DCSS will monitor processes to see if their plan of cooperation with the court and filing deadlines works efficiently with the staffing levels and division of work. We will be assessing what works and what doesn’t and going from there to determine how to reduce any impacts to staff. The next meeting is set for March 3, 2025. Stay tuned for more updates.

UPE thanks 005 Governing Board Chair Sylvia Garcia and Subject Matter Expert Esperanza Gilbert for their advocacy and participation at this meeting.

TOGETHER WE ARE STRONG!