MINUTES Members Participating Staff The chair called the meeting to order. Approval of Minutes Administrative Rule 41 Justice Sandstrom stated that in regard to the first issue, options include: 1. Don't list date of birth or street address After discussion it was the consensus of the group that the public access website should continue to display only city and state in the address fields and that the court should design a process that would allow the public to enter a full date of birth in order to refine searches. Judge Herauf moved/Becky Absey seconded that the committee recommend to the court that the public website display only the city and state in the address field and that the date
of birth should not display unless it is an exact match to a date of birth that the requestor
has included as part of the search criteria. A vote was taken and the motion carried. The committee then turned to the second issue of access to information on restricted
cases. Judge Nelson noted that the committee should also consider this in regard to
displaying information on public calendars. He requested that restricted cases display as
"court hearing" or "busy" or some other agreed upon verbiage so litigants and others
would know that the judge was unavailable. Justice Sandstrom pointed out that it would be more beneficial to have verbiage such as
"closed case" so interested observers would know that even though court was in session,
attendance at the hearing will be restricted. The consensus was that "closed hearing" or "restricted" should display on the public
calendar. The committee asked Mike Hagburg for information pertaining to Section 3(a)(2) of AR
41, which reads "There must be a publicly accessible indication of the existence of
information in a court record to which access has been prohibited, which indication may
not disclose the nature of the information protected." Mr. Hagburg explained that it was
part of the model rule developed by CCJ/COSCA and is in support of section 6, which
provides procedures for requesting access to restricted cases. He provided the committee
with the commentary to the model rule. The committee discussed the merits of providing information on restricted cases, as well
as what type of information would be acceptable to display. It was the consensus of the
group that it would be appropriate for the public website and the public calendars to list
the case number and to replace party names with the word "restricted case" or similar
verbiage. Judge Nelson moved/Judge Herauf seconded that the committee recommend to the court
that the public website and public calendars display the case number for restricted cases
and in the display replace party names with the word "restricted case" or similar
verbiage. A vote was taken and the motion carried. Chair Sandstrom referred to the August 20, 2007 e-mail sent to him by Jay Buringrud
regarding the inclusion of traffic offenses on the court's public website. His concern is
that the insurance companies may be using this information in violation of the spirit of
N.D.C.C. 39-06.1-10(1), which requires the Dept. of Transportation to keep a separate,
non-public record of traffic offenses with points of two or less. Kurt Schmidt remarked that we had gotten a similar request from DOT regarding use of
addresses and our response was that these are court records, not Drivers records and are
treated as such. Sally Holewa commented that Mr. Burlingrud's e-mail appears to be based on
speculation about how the records might be misused, rather than on evidence of misuse.
She further commented that if they were misused in the manner indicated that it would be
a matter for the Insurance Commissioner to deal with. She said the records in question
are publicly accessible court records and we should not allow speculation about how they
might be used by another agency or group to determine how the court wants to handle its
records. It was the consensus of the group that the committee should include in its letter to the
court that it recommends no change in regard to this issue. Unified Court Information System Replacement Project Judge Nelson said he thought the operational oversight should include a court reporter or
court recorder since they are current UCIS users. Chair Sandstrom indicated that he had discussed the UCIS replacement project and the
proposed Operational Oversight with Judge Racek and Judge Medd, who could not be at
the meeting today. He briefly outlined those discussions. Judge Medd's comments related to the UCIS replacement system. He thought any new
system should consider how forms within the system are handled. He thought that rather
than being able to update verbiage that the judges should be able to change the forms
themselves. He said it was a concern about how long it takes to get changes made now.
He said that the new system should be able to generate judgments from the courtroom
and the calendar system should be compatible with Outlook and allow for multiple
sorting options. He said the RFP should include processes that are unique to North
Dakota. Judge Racek's comments related to the UCIS replacement process, the make-up of the
operational oversight committee, and the timing of hiring a project manager. He thought
that the most important step in the process was keeping everyone informed of the
progress and allowing ample opportunity for input. He suggested intranet posting would
work for this. He suggested that the proposed operational oversight committee was too
large. His fear is that it will be inefficient and allow for too much internal arguing over
procedures. He suggested that fewer clerks with more opportunity for input at earlier
stages would make the oversight committee more efficient. He suggested that a project
manager should be hired soon. In regard to the UCIS replacement system, his concerns are focused on getting
redundancy out of the system, eliminating manual procedures, and duplicate data entry.
He suggested that a trainer be involved in the whole replacement process and not just
brought in to design and deliver training prior to rollout. Finally, he suggested a court
technology committee retreat to hash through some issues related to selecting and
customizing a new system. Donna Fair indicated that clerks are the ones who know the details of the UCIS
procedures, so eliminating them from the oversight committee would be harmful. Becky Absey agreed and added that having more clerks would make the oversight
committee more objective and would likely lead to more ideas on how to do things
better. Kurt Schmidt indicated that the development of a communications plan is one of the
areas he has listed in the Administrative Portfolio. It is assumed that use of the intranet
and e-mail will figure heavily in that plan. Sally Holewa indicated that she agreed with Judge Racek regarding the size of the
operational oversight committee. She indicated that it was the expectation that under the
direction of the operational oversight committee that the portfolio members would be
actively seeking input from judges and employees as they considered each issue. She
also indicated that the expectation was that we would be creating a website similar to
Minnesota's MNCIS page, where issues are identified and discussed and decisions of the
oversight committee are posted. She suggested that a smaller operational oversight
committee would be more flexible and more efficient. Her suggestion was to limit the
committee to: · A district court judge to serve as chair of the committee, After further discussion it was the consensus of the committee to recommend to the court
that a small operational oversight committee be established, and actual members to be
appointed by the Chief Justice in consultation with the state court administrator and the
chair of the Court Technology Committee. The timing of hiring a project manager was reviewed. Sally Holewa suggested that
although it would be beneficial to have the new IT director have some input in hiring a
project manager, delaying the decision until someone is hired would put the UCIS project
behind by at least three months. She said that delay is a concern for several reasons. In addition to budgetary concerns,
there are mandatory reporting requirements to the State Information Technology
Advisory Committee, we are also required to comply with ITD's reporting requirements.
She said that given the past attempt by the legislature to bring the court's IT department
under ITD, a stalled or failed project would give the legislature renewed incentive to
eliminate our IT department. For those reasons, she thought a project manager should be
brought into the picture as soon as possible. Chair Sandstrom reiterated the goal of a successful project. With Kurt Schmidt's
imminent departure, we are left with no one with project management experience to
guide us. After further discussion it was the consensus of the group that the committee recommend
that a project manager be hired promptly. The final discussion related to the UCIS replacement project centered on the RFP
approach. Sally Holewa indicated that it might be premature to address this issue since it
was likely that the chair of the operational oversight committee and the project manager
would probably have strong opinions on this issue. Kurt Schmidt said that every person he has talked with at the National Center, from other
courts, and within the other agencies have told him that because we are not going to build
but instead will be buying an off the shelf product it is a waste of time to develop a
detailed RFP that includes all of our current processes. Instead, we should concentrate
our efforts on the 200 to 300 processes that are unique to North Dakota or are essential to
how we want to operate differently in the future. After further discussion, the committee reached the consensus that the decision regarding
the extent of the RFP should lie with the operational oversight committee and the project
manager. Judge Herauf moved/Becky Absey seconded that the committee send a letter to the court
recommending that the state court administrator move rapidly to hire a project manager
and that an operational oversight committee be established with the smaller membership
suggested by Sally Holewa, and membership appointed by the Chief Justice. That the
operational oversight committee provide frequent and timely dissemination of
information and opportunity for input to all interested parties, and that it make regular
reports to the Technology Committee. A vote was taken and the motion carried. Other Sally Holewa said that in the past, the Court Technology Committee has determined
where the IVN systems would be located. She said that the Court Facilities Improvement
Advisory Committee has been rejecting all applications for IVN systems unless they
have received prior approval from the Court Technology Committee. She indicated that
it was not just the cost of installing equipment that was a concern, but the increased line
charges and maintenance and replacement costs that the state is obliged to take on
whenever a new system is installed. Kurt Schmidt indicated that we were able to pull the three IVN systems that were
budgeted for this biennium, into last biennium, so we should identify three new sites. He
has asked the trial court administrators to recommend new sites. Those
recommendations will be available at the next meeting. It was agreed to table this issue for the next meeting when the committee can consider
the recommendations from all units. It was decided that the committee should meet soon after the Court Technology
Conference to discuss ideas and information obtained from that conference. The next meeting will be on October 12, 2007, at 1:30 p.m. in the Supreme Court Front
Conference Room. Meeting adjourned. Respectfully submitted,
COURT TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
September 7, 2007
Dale Sandstrom, Chair
Becky Absey
Donna Fair
Bill Herauf
Sally Holewa
David Nelson
Colette Bruggman o/b/o Penny Miller
Kurt T. Schmidt
Mike Sampson
Mike Hagburg
Judge Herauf moved/Donna Fair seconded that the minutes be approved with a correction
to the spelling of Judge Racek's name on pg. 1. A vote was taken and the motion carried.
Justice Sandstrom provided an overview of the issues related to AR 41 that the
committee was being asked to review. The first issue is the related issues of displaying
the date of birth and the street address on the public website. The second issue is related
to whether or not information related to restricted cases should be available on the web.
2. List date of birth and/or street address
3. List a truncated version of the date of birth
4. Design a process that will not display the date of birth unless it is entered as a way to refine a search
The committee then turned to the issue of the UCIS replacement project. Chair
Sandstrom suggested that the best way to handle the three related issues of operational
oversight structure, issuance of the RFP, and project management would be to discuss
them separately but to combine them for purposes of a motion regarding a
recommendation to the court.
· The chair of the Technology Committee,
· The President of the Clerk's Association,
· The State Court Administrator, and
· The Director of Technology, and
· The Project Manager, as staff to the committee
Judge Nelson notified the committee that the commissioners in McKenzie County have
agreed to submit a grant application to the Court Facilities Improvement fund for an IVN
system in the courtroom in Watford City. He has also spoken with the commissioners in
Mountrail about the need for an IVN system. They do not have the funds for such a
system and would like the state to bear the cost of installing one.
Sally Holewa