Court Technology Committee April 9, 2010 Minutes

MINUTES
Court Technology Committee
Supreme Court, Bismarck
April 9, 2010
9:15 a.m.

Members Participating
Dale Sandstrom, Supreme Court Justice, Committee Chair
Becky Absey, Clerk of District Court
Rita Fisher, Deputy Clerk of Court
William Herauf, District Judge
Sally Holewa, State Court Administrator
Joel Medd, District Judge
Donna Wunderlich, Unit Trial Court Administrator
Frank Racek, District Judge
Jannelle Combs, Chief Deputy Supreme Court Clerk for Penny Miller
Daniel Narum, District Judge
Lee Ann Barnhardt, Director of Education & Communication

Members Absent
Douglas Mattson, District Judge
Penny Miller, Clerk of Supreme Court

Guests
Brandi Fagerland, ITD Project Oversight Manager
Jim Gienger, Project Manager for UCIS Replacement Project
Allan Schmalenberger, District Judge
Chris Iverson, Unit 2 Trial Court Manager
Wanda Knutson, Clerk of District Court
Barbara Hill, Clerk of District Court
Kathy Ouren, Clerk of District Court

Staff
Larry Zubke, Director of Technology

The meeting was called to order by Chair Sandstrom.

Approval of Minutes from February 12, 2010 Meeting
Judge William Herauf moved to approve the February 12, 2009 meeting minutes. Judge Frank Racek seconded the motion and the motion carried.

Odyssey Implementation
Jim Gienger began his report by going over the Project Status and Project Variance reports which have been submitted to the ITD Large Project Oversight team. The project is 2.7% ahead of schedule at this time. The overall project budget remains the same as before and to date is 6.5% under budget. Risk Management issues to note are issues 15 and 16. Issue 15 deals with credit card processing functionality. This is being resolved by using the Odyssey credit card solution which will be deployed in May. Issue 16 addresses the late implementation of the Wiznet E-filing system. Steps have been taken to resolve this issue and Tyler has recently deployed a new solution into the production system. This system is being tested by two law firms at this time. Tyler has identified a dedicated resource project manager to monitor this project.

Some of the major project accomplishments include:

· Trained pilot law firms and clerks to use the new E-filing solution
· Trained Phase 2 Subject Matter Experts and remaining district and municipal clerks
· Completed Phase 2 data reviews
· Established the new configuration within Odyssey for Unit 2 district and municipal courts
· Began receiving traffic payments via the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Interactive Web Response (IWR) systems
· Performed three data pushes from UCIS to Odyssey and verified each push
· Worked with the municipal courts to define their business processes
· Applied a script to convert over 7,000 payment plans in Odyssey
· Identified delinquent account statuses
· Deployed the tax intercept integration and began intercepting state tax returns for past due fines and fees
· Completed all Odyssey enhancements except one report
· Delivered an Alt+F1 report solution for the State Revenue Report
· Sent Court programming staff to Odyssey Database training
· Prepared for the Phase 2 "Go-live" scheduled for April 19
· Established a training and hands-on schedule for completing month-end processing in each county
· Developed a contingency plan should flooding occur in the eastern part of the state
· Scheduled Odyssey training for judges, reporters, and recorders
· Installed the E-signature module and trained pilot clerk users
· Began working on ND custom enhancements for the Session Works - Clerks Addition
· Established training schedules for Phase 3 training
· Scheduled the first of four data pushes for Phase 3 on July 9^th
· Established a schedule to deploy the interface between the VIQ recording system and Odyssey
· Scheduled the attorney party merge process needed to deploy the interface between the Bar Board system and Odyssey
· Scheduled the necessary tasks to deploy the Odyssey credit card solution in May

Judge Racek raised four issues. The first involved giving attorney access to Odyssey. This is being worked on by Tyler and Court staff. The second dealt with automating dispositional updates to parole and probation organizations. This will be solved by the Dispositional Report that Tyler is developing. The third was a reminder of the different practices used statewide to handle restitution. The last involved Municipal bond transfers. This will require further research.The committee discussed municipal courts and how the courts were planning to use the Odyssey system for accounting, check printing, and document imaging. The committee agreed that municipals must image all documents that are transferred to the district court.Project staff will conduct a "Lessons Learned" exercise after Phase 2 go-live is completed.

Interactive Video Systems to be included in 2011-2013 Biennium

Larry Zubke reported that the technology budget for the 2011-2013 biennium is due in to ITD's management in July. Preliminary decisions on interactive video conferencing and digital audio recording systems need to be made in order to prepare the budget. Larry gave a status of currently installed video systems. New requests for the next biennium include Cass county's new court room, La Moure county, Mountrail county, and Pembina county. Pembina County may get installed this biennium. The committee discussed capping the expansion at a maximum of four new installations.

Judge Herauf moved to include a maximum of four new interactive video sites in the 2011-2013 biennium. Those sites would be Cass County's new court room, La Moure County, Mountrail County, and Pembina County or an alternate location if Pembina was completed in this biennium. Judge Racek seconded the motion and the motion carried.

Lee Ann Barnhardt asked if a survey had been done to determine how much these systems were being used. Sally Holewa stated that a survey hadn't been done. Donna Wunderlich mentioned that her unit uses them primarily to interact with the jails for initial appearances and bond hearings.

Status of Digital Recording
Larry Zubke gave a status of currently installed digital recording systems. All of the larger courtrooms have digital recording systems. What remains are smaller county courtrooms. Many of the smaller courtrooms don't have a sound system which prevents installing the same type of system as used in larger courtrooms. Larry recommended capping the maximum number of new systems for the biennium at eight systems. Cost is the primary reason. If sound systems are required, the cost increases by approximately $20,000 and brings a complete system to approximately $30,000 per courtroom. Larry also stated that a low cost recording solution was being tested for the smaller courtrooms that could be purchased for around $1,500.

Judge Herauf stated that the current tape systems were very troublesome and needed to be replaced as soon as possible.

Judge Racek mentioned that Cass may get three new courtrooms that will need to be set up for sound and recording.

The committee discussed the pros and cons of having sound systems installed with recording systems or just standalone recording systems without sound systems.

Judge Herauf moved to budget for a maximum of eight full digital audio systems which would include sound systems for larger courtrooms and replace aging tape systems in smaller courtrooms with a less expensive recording solution that would not include a sound system. Donna Wunderlich seconded the motion and the motion carried.

For the Good of the Order

Justice Sandstrom requested that Penny Miller and Larry Zubke begin working on installing video in the Supreme Court courtroom.

The 2010 dates for the Court Technology Committee meetings are listed below. All meetings will be held in the Front Conference Room at the Supreme Court and will begin at 9:15 a.m. To the extent possible, telephone and ITV will be available as an option for all meetings.

June 25
August 13
October 8
December 3

Meeting adjourned at 11:15.