Delays hurt plan to link state courts
Millions spent, progress scant, and legislators growing weary
INDIANAPOLIS – A now 7-year-old statewide court computer project with no firm timeline for completion or budget is starting to get the attention of key lawmakers – and it’s not the good kind of attention.
Plans to computerize records and link more than 400 civil and criminal courts around Indiana started in 2002. But after spending millions of dollars, only a few dozen courts in nine counties have hooked on.
“That’s not a very high-performance level,” said Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, an attorney and chairman of the influential Senate Appropriations Committee. “I think we need to re-evaluate the project as far as where we are going and what we are going to do.
“Right now it’s kind of stagnant.”
Officials helping to run the project concede some lawmakers have started to question the case management project, also known as Odyssey.
In fact, during the regular legislative session, a provision was inserted into a version of the budget that failed that would have moved the project to the State Budget Agency.
Currently, it is handled within the Indiana Supreme Court’s Judicial Technology and Automation Committee, known as JTAC.
“It’s safe to say we always want to do better,” Court of Appeals Judge Paul Mathias said. “But we are satisfied given the complexities we are dealing with.”
Mathias is a longtime member and vice chairman of JTAC.
Kenley said he wrote the provision because he is frustrated the project is moving so slow. The main budget conferees decided to wait before acting so they can learn why counties aren’t signing on and what the rest of the project will cost.
“We are making decisions one piece at a time instead of an overall look at the cost,” Kenley said. “Let’s institutionalize it so it’s a performing asset. Now that we are past the development stage and it’s operational, we need to be more standardized in operation.”
State Budget Director Chris Ruhl is trying to stay out of the fray, saying the discussion is between the legislative and judicial branch” and the administration doesn’t need or want to be in the middle of the discussion.
The goal of the project is ambitious: equip all Indiana courts and clerks with a 21st-century computer system to manage cases. The system will also connect the various court systems with one another, as well as police, state agencies and the public.
“It will help to have all the courts be able to talk to each other electronically,” Allen Superior Judge Fran Gull said. “With the numbers of people moving around a lot, it would be nice to know if the person standing in front of me for a sentencing has a case pending in another county. It’s a more coordinated effort.”
Gull doesn’t think the project is behind, but she hesitates to put a timeline on it.
“I wish we could wave a wand and have it installed … but it takes time,” she said. “Anytime you are talking about rolling out a new system to 92 counties you are going to have a few glitches along the way.”
One of those glitches was originally hiring Computer Associates International Inc. to design the software. By 2005 it was clear the software didn’t work and the contract was canceled and money refunded to the state.
Another contract was signed with Tyler Technologies Inc. in 2007 to implement its Odyssey system in Indiana. The licensing fee charged by Tyler is $7.7 million with $5 million paid out thus far.
Timelines difficult
Mary DePrez, director and counsel of trial court technology for JTAC, said it’s difficult to determine a timeline to deploy Odyssey to all 92 counties because of problems encountered with the quality of data contained in the existing systems. Given that, she estimated it could take five or six years to complete a statewide rollout of Odyssey.
She notes that regardless of the goals for the primary case management system, the committee has worked on some other smaller but important projects for the judicial system, such as a protection order registry and electronic ticketing application.
JTAC’s work is paid for by an automated record-keeping fee charged on most civil and criminal cases. It has risen over the years to $7. Currently about $7 million comes in each year, DePrez said.
The cost of the project has also been troublesome to pin down.
DePrez said that in 2002, JTAC projected that the cost to implement a uniform case management system to all the courts in the state was between $73 million and $113 million.
This estimate includes costs to be borne at both the state and local level.
Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard asked for a $3 increase in the fee this year, but legislators declined.
Instead, the fee will drop to $4 in 2012 under the new state budget. And it redirects some of the money from the fee on deferral and diversion cases to the Homeowners Protection Fund.
DePrez said the additional money was needed to expedite deployment of Odyssey to more than one county at a time, as well as paying to staff a 24-hour help desk that is currently only open during normal business hours.
Also, a key change was made where the state has decided to pay for the cost of data conversion, which was originally borne by the county.
County a behemoth
Local courts pay no installation costs, training costs, license fees or annual maintenance costs for Odyssey. They are responsible for hardware that can run the system and network connectivity.
Allen County was thought to be joining the network in 2009, but Clerk Therese Brown now says that goal is likely not attainable. Brown will ask for about $250,000 from the County Council next week for an outside vendor to assess how “dirty” the county’s data is, and how long it will take to extract it for the new system.
Under Odyssey, data has to be in a specific format.
“We’re a behemoth, so it’s going to take a while,” Brown said. “There are lots of logistics and nuances in 92 counties. Everyone has slightly different practices.”
But Brown believes Hoosiers will be well-served by the new system, which will allow people to access court records for free on the Indiana Supreme Court’s Web site.
Others, though, aren’t interested.
LaGrange County Clerk Beverly Elliott said she doesn’t plan on going on Odyssey, which is not mandated at this time. She said LaGrange County bought and installed its own case management system in 2005 when the state project had stalled.
“I’m sure Odyssey will work fine for some counties, but we don’t have the money to sink into a new system when ours is working fine,” she said.
Mathias and DePrez acknowledged others are resisting as well. “Nobody likes change,” Mathias said. “Some are concerned because we are trying to build a system that enforces statutes and rules.”
For instance, he said some counties ignore a requirement to calculate interest on judgments, while others calculate interest in a different manner. Odyssey will standardize those and other facets of the system.
“I maintain this is the most extensive and important project the courts have undertaken in a century,” he said. “The need for public safety and efficiency cannot be overstated.”
Indiana State Police say a distracted trucker drove into the back of another tractor-trailer rig, causing a crash that closed part of Interstate 69 for several hours.The crash occurred about 5 a.m.