Contending that the jury system in Los Angeles County is "dangerously close to collapse," the presiding judge of the Superior Court on Wednesday announced the first of a series of planned innovations designed to make jury duty a tolerable experience, if not a pleasant one.

The initiatives, some of which are already being instituted, stem from two recent county studies that found shoddy treatment of jurors to be a widespread problem. The studies recommended a vast overhaul of the jury system and court officials have made that charge a top priority, Judge Gary Klausner said at a news conference at the Downtown County Courthouse.

But Klausner was less certain about where the financially strapped county will find the $4 million he estimated it will take to complete the project. County officials said Wednesday that they are equally concerned about deficiencies in the jury system but asserted that there is no money in the budget to fund some of Klausner's proposals.

The initiatives range from such modest efforts as implementing a juror appreciation program to more ambitious reforms such as imposing sanctions on people who ignore jury summonses, upgrading jury assembly rooms, permanently excusing disabled or terminally ill people from service, and implementing a countywide, automated telephone system to handle the thousands of jury queries that frequently overload court phone lines.

The goal of the reforms is to alleviate some of the frustrations and annoyances that have drained the public's confidence in the jury system and depleted the ranks of willing jurors, Klausner said.

He painted a picture of a judicial system that frequently exposes its jurors to harsher environments than its defendants, with overcrowded, dilapidated waiting rooms, insufficient and uncomfortable seating, poor drinking water and unsafe parking lots.

One Municipal Court jury room in Torrance is lodged in a dank basement and there have been instances in other courts where jurors have been forced to share a waiting room with defendants, Klausner said.

He noted that the spotlight focused on the O.J. Simpson case has highlighted some of the problems jurors face, but that the stresses and strains are widespread.

"People feel abused by the system; they are made to wait and treated in a fashion that's not appropriate," Klausner said. "It's a system that turns people off."