Present Judge Sonja Clapp - Chair Robin Huseby Peter Welte Dennis Herbeck Cheryl Kulas David McGeary Paul Ronningen
Absent Judge Doug Mattson Judge Dan Narum Judge David Reich (filling in for Judge Romanick) Connie Portscheller
Staff Lee Ann Barnhardt Louie Hentzen
Judge Clapp opened the meeting by introducing herself as the new chair of the Court
Improvement Advisory Committee. She has previously served on this committee and was co-chair with Paul Ronningen. The committee has been re-established under the Administrative
Council.
Introduction of Committee Members
Judge Sonja Clapp is a judge with the district court in Grand Forks. She has been with
the district court since January 2005 and prior to that she served as an assistant State's Attorney
at the Grand Forks county state's attorneys office for almost 18 years.
Louie Hentzen is the Assistant State Court Administrator. He is the juvenile court
coordinator as well as the court improvement coordinator assigned for the state of North Dakota.
Lana Zimmerman is the Administrative Assistant and will be taking minutes for the Court
Improvement Advisory Committee.
Lee Ann Barnhardt is the Judicial Education Coordinator for the Supreme Court and
writes the grants for this program to get money to operate this committee.
Dennis Herbeck is the Trial Court Administrator for Unit 1 and previously was the
Juvenile Court Service Director and has been in juvenile court most of his career.
Peter Welte is a State's Attorney in Grand Forks.
Robin Huseby is the Director of Indigent Defense.
Cheryl Kulas is the Director of the Indian Affairs Commission.
Paul Ronningen is the Director of Children and Family Services with the Department of
Human Services.
Dave McGeary is the Director of Juvenile Court for Unit 3. He was also on this
committee in year's past.
Judge Clapp thanked everyone and acknowledged that this is a well qualified group and
appreciates everyone's attendance. Lee Ann and Louie gave a background of the Court
Improvement Committee, its tasks, as well as the grant process.
CIP OVERVIEW Louie Hentzen stated the concept for Court Improvement was created by Congress in the
mid 90s. Funds were allocated to courts through a series of congressional Acts over the years:
Social Security Act, the Deficit Reduction Act, the Safe and Timely Interstate Placement of
Foster Children Act, the Child and Family Services Improvement Act, the Promoting Safe and
Stable Families Program Act, and the Adoption and Safe Families Act. All of the Acts contain
Court Improvement language and indicate what the courts should be aware of concerning the
safety, permanency, and well being of children. The history of this particular committee started in 1997 when the court applied for grant
monies. The State Court Administrative Office contracted with UND social work department to
submit a report. This resulted in a lay guardian ad litem pilot project in Cass County. Since
then, the lay guardian ad litem project is statewide and no longer a pilot project. The CIP committee, chaired by Judge Christofferson, then joined with the Adoption and
Safe Family Act committee of the ND Department of Human Services (DHS), chaired by Paul
Ronningen. This committee was co-chaired by Judge Christofferson and Paul Ronningen and
numbered in the 20s. A decision was made to have the CIP committee report to either someone or some other
court committee. The Administrative Council voted in December to have the CIP committee be
an advisory committee to the Administrative Council (Policy 520). Language in the Congressional Acts requires states to create a multi-disciplinary task
force. This committee fills that requirement. The Acts have indicated that the task forces
include state and local courts, the state agency or any other agency under contract with the state
that is responsible for administering the state program under Title IV B and Title IV E, and when
applicable, Indian Tribes.
GUARDIAN AD LITEM PROJECT The lay GAL project has been going well across the stated and was recently evaluated.
That evaluation and its recommendations are being reviewed. The mechanics of the appointment
process are that when a guardian ad litem is needed, the juvenile court office notifies the project
office at UND in Grand Forks. The project director (Brad Swenson) will assign a lay GAL to the
case. The administration of this project is funded by the basic CIP grant. Each state receives
$85,000 plus a supplemental based on the number of children in the state under 21. North
Dakota is awarded $95,709 and the state is required to contribute a 25% match. Over the years, the administrative cost to run the project has exceeded the grant
allocation. The contract for the next year will be $150,000 to $160,000. We get general fund
monies for the 25% match, as well as other monies for the project. Some of the other things that
have been funded out of Court Improvement are the ICWA conferences and forums. There is
also separate general fund monies that are used for the fees and expenses for the lay GALs
themselves for their case work as assigned. In the current biennium, we allocated $527,000. We
have increased that to $601,000 for the next biennium to accommodate recent change that will
allow the lay GAL's to remain in the case if a TPR is filed. Paul Ronningen inquired as to how the $527,000 will satisfy the current budget time
frame. Louie indicated that the most recent numbers from Susan Sisk indicate we have
completed 88% of the biennium and have spent 82%. Louie indicated he has run some numbers
recently that demonstrate how uneven the petition filings are across the state. For instance,
Burleigh County has the second highest population in the state, but had no TPRs filed in 2006.
CIP GRANTS Lee Ann Barnhardt gave an update on the grant process. The three grants that were
applied for are all for five years. We apply on an annual basis. The grants are due June 30th. In
prior years, all of the subcommittees worked through a strategic planning process and came up
with the five-year plans. What we are working on now is based off the work of those
subcommittees. The application and strategic plans will be sent out in the next 2 weeks, with a
copy to each committee member. The first grant is the basic grant. It is approximately $101,000 for the next year. All of
the money from this grant goes to the Guardian Ad Litem Project. In addition to the GAL
project, the strategic plan addresses court rules to define the roles of the guardian ad litem, and
other policy issues. The CIP committee is continuing to work on defining active efforts and
addressing the issue of qualified expert witnesses. The basic grant also looked at time standards
and making sure all the federal guidelines are followed and also the guidelines the court has
adopted in its court rules for processing these cases (these items will be moved to the data grant
in the future). Within the grant, we have also sponsored ICWA forums and the ICWA
conference, which will be moved to the education grant. Each grant has a strategic plan and is
outcome based. Every December a progress report is filed with the federal government. They
are looking at outcomes, not just activity. More will be discussed when this committee continues
to meet. The second grant is the education and training grant. CIP committee applied for this grant
last summer and received the funding in October. It was $95,709. For the education and training
grant, a sub-committee was formed and consisted of Robin Huseby, Bill Neumann, Brad
Peterson, John Grinsteiner, James Gion, Pete Tunseth, Tara Muhlhauser, and Jody Gillette. It
was agreed that some statewide cross training on legal issues will be offered. Every other year
there will be a statewide training conference on child welfare issues. There will also be regional
cross training, which will start in October. The ground work has been completed and the
sessions will be offered across the state beginning this fall. Paul Ronningen inquired if the training will be for all eight regions. Lee Ann answered that it will be four regions at this time. Grand Forks, Valley City,
Dickinson and Minot. The announcements will go out by the end of July. Funds were also set
aside for in-state training for judges on child welfare issues, which was started last fall. Money
has been set aside for this every other year. There will also be out-of-state training for judicial
officers, state's attorneys and defense attorneys. The idea is to develop some specialized training
for attorneys and judges in this field so they can start to become mentors or trainers in the future
when we do some of our regional training. Judges haven't been sent yet due to scheduling
conflicts. Some support is also provided for guardian ad litems training. We will assist with
registration fees for the ICWA Conference and for the Children and Family Services Conference
that is put on every year. There will be a one day training the end of July for our guardian ad
litems, which will tie into the Children and Family Services Conference. It is a chance for the
guardian ad litems to talk as a group about guidelines, and policies and procedures. The money
from ICWA has been moved to this grant. We have 2 years to spend the funds in this cycle. We
have given $5,000 for the ICWA conference in the past and will up the amount to $10,000 in this
grant year and add the ICWA forums. The third grant is the data collection and analysis grant. The CIP committee did not apply
for this grant last year. A strategic plan was written along with the grant and presented to Chief
Justice VandeWalle. The Chief Justice felt the plan was not supportable at that time and asked
that it be revised and submitted in 2007. The current plan is to do an RFP for an individual to
complete an assessment and gather data to establish benchmarks as to time standards, case
processing and where improvement can be made. That individual would complete a full
assessment of how to handle the caseflow in child deprivation matters. Wisconsin has used what
they call a quality assurance model approach. Our grant will be based off of their model. The
first year of the grant is seen as a planning year and a final version submitted in following years.
An amendment to the plan can be made at anytime in the process.
QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS Dave McGeary inquired what is included in the administrative cost in the guardian ad
litem project. Louie stated it is the project director's salary, the coordinator's salary, the office support
staff salary, their expenses for travel, and the UND social work department's oversight, and 8%
indirect costs due to the space being used at the University. This needs to be discussed as
someone will raise the red flag with it costing more than what we are receiving in the grant.
Most states take that project and pull it in house. They also take their court improvement money
and have hired FTEs to work in their court administrator's office to run those programs. That is
a viable option in the future and it is something this committee will need to address sooner or
later. A recommendation will need to be made to Administrative Council on whether or not this
is the way to go. The evaluation shows that everyone is pretty pleased with the operation as it is
now and in particular the judges, the guardian ad litems and court staff have a higher rating than
the social workers and state's attorneys. However, they are still pleased with the operation and
what they do. Dennis Herbeck asked where the funds come from to actually pay the guardian ad
litems? Louie stated it is different general funds monies. It is the $600,000 that will be issued in
the next biennium. Lee Ann stated we did have general fund money to pay for the ICWA conference, but
now that we have these other grant sources, we didn't have to include that and may have left the
extra funds in the budget or used it as match dollars. Dennis Herbeck stated with some respect for the operation, they have done a good job.
They train everybody and with my experience there, it has been handled well and they manage
all the problems associated with the GAL. They have produced a really good product. Louie added every year they write into the contract a 4% raise for each of their staff. We
are not getting a 4% increase in the federal allotment and it has been gradually going down based
on the number of children in North Dakota. In the three years that I have been here, it has gone
down $4,000. Robin Huseby stated we need to have a good discussion about the project having
independence from the court system. Dave McGeary asked if we are locked into a situation where we would probably have to
address this within this biennium or could the decision be made next year? Louie stated that our contract with UND is yearly and it is renewable each year.
Periodically, the State Court Administrator will send out an RFP and see if anyone else wants to
bid on that service. The next time the State Court Administrator and the Chief Justice decide that
they want to do that, it will be the time for that discussion as whether or not we want to bring it
in house or continue to contract that service out.
Judge Clapp asked when the contract comes up for renewal each year?
Louie answered, June 30th.
Judge Clapp asked if we will be contracting with them this year?
Louie indicated the current correspondence within the last two days is that they submitted
their contract proposal and Sally countered it. My understanding from Brad Swenson is that
everybody has agreed to what Sally has recommended and their protocol is that it goes to the
UND Grants and Contracts Department for them to sign off and then it will come back through
the system and should be done this week.
Cheryl Kulas asked what does the $600,000 general fund money support?
Louie stated the guardian ad litems get paid $15-$20 per hour based on their years of
experience. They are limited to 15 hours per case. If they need more time, they have to go to the
project manager and he will ask the court to extend more time. It also goes to their expenses.
We don't have a guardian ad litem in every county. They may travel to several counties so their
travel expenses involved in the actual case process is paid as well.
Dennis Herbeck asked if it is pretty much statewide?
Louie answered it's statewide. There are approximately 50 lay guardian ad litems across
the state. This has gone down a little bit, but has reached as high as 63 at one point, but the
number of cases have gone down.
Dennis Herbeck stated it doesn't seem too expensive for what we are getting in return. Lee Ann stated one of the benefits to bringing it in house is that eventually the cost would
be absorbed out of general funds, which would make these grant dollars available for something
else. The long term thinking is to pilot it with grant dollars and eventually use general fund
dollars to continue it and then to do something else. Louie said not to confuse the $600,000 with the grant. The $600,000 is strictly general
fund monies that we would have if we had this operation in house or by contract. We go to the
legislature every other year and ask for that money to be placed in the judicial branch budget.
The monies that we are talking about that could shift to an in-house operation is the basic grant
money, which would be $126,690 in this next year and that could go into the administrative
office to hire a coordinator and a support person and still not spend the entire amount, which is as
much as we are giving to UND to operate this at $150,000-$160,000 that they need. Paul Ronningen asked if bringing this entire issue in-house or out of house, if there would
be any other way of switching that over to general fund and keeping the project at UND. Is there
something that would keep us from keeping it at UND, shifting it to our general funds in the next
biennium as it goes through the legislative process and keeping the grant flexible with the
opportunities to do other projects? Louie stated that he doesn't know the political ramifications with us approaching the
legislature and asking for general funds to pay UND to do something. It would be a contract. Another question: Is there data tabulated that compares different counties and TPR's and
those types of things that the committee could take a look at? Louie stated he has data for the last three years. Not suprising is that the largest counties
are the ones that do the most filings. During the legislative session the county directors objected
to the policy board's recommendation of putting active efforts language in NDCC 27-20. They
came with a county director to address the judiciary subcommittee about that and of course they
chose somebody to address that from one of the counties that has not had a juvenile case filed in
three years. Paul Ronningen stated he would like to lay his data side by side and compare it. Then to
have a larger discussion with the county directors along with some court people and ask what is
the difference between a Cass vs. Grand Forks vs. Burleigh county etc. Louie stated this is a topic for the data collection and analysis grant and how to develop
the strategic plan for that and so forth. We will get that out to you as soon as it is available and
then discuss it from there because it will be ongoing. There are four years left in that particular
grant allocation at this point, but we will be applying for it every year. Lee Ann stated that we will actually be writing the RFP for what type of data is to be
collected, what is to be analyzed, what type of reports is expected back and these are the types of
things this committee will be able to get involved in. When we write that first year of the grant,
it will be somewhat generic in terms of the five-year plan. There will be time to input into it
exactly what is wanted and how it is to look. Louie stated the plan is to contract with a research analyst to do this type of work this first
year. Just like the basic grant with the guardian ad litem project, that might lead down the road
to an FTE coming out of that grant for a research analyst on staff. It is speculation at this point. Judge Clapp returned to discussing the guardian ad litem project. She said we are going to
have to study whether we want to move it in-house versus a contract with UND. She doesn't
know if there are advantages to keeping it at UND and whether they have different people that
come in and train with new innovative ideas versus having someone in house. She thought
maybe there is an advantage with keeping it with the university. This would be something to
look at in depth before making a recommendation.
SubCommittees Louie stated under the previous court improvement operation there were four
subcommittees, which were put into the strategic plans for the past several years. The four
committee were: ICWA, to study those issues that involved the indian children of the state of
North Dakota; guardian ad litem; education and training; and collaboration and systems
integration, to study collaboration between the courts and DHS, which has been pretty well over
the last couple of years. What Lee Ann and I are thinking is with the new data collection and analysis grant, there
should be a subcommittee for that grant and eliminate the collaboration subcommittee. The
subcommittees can be made up of members outside the main committee. In the education and
training committee, there is someone from the Bar Association and several attorneys, etc. A
recommendation or request is that somebody from this committee chair each of those
subcommittees. We are looking for volunteers for those subcommittees today along with the
chairs of each subcommittee. The chair of the full committee will make up what is called the
executive committee and would meet periodically by phone or however necessary to direct the
path of the full committee.
Judge Clapp requested volunteers for each subcommittee.
1. ICWA - Dennis Herbeck will chair this subcommittee. Louie Hentzen will
staff the subcommittee. 2. GAL - Dave McGeary will chair this subcommittee. Louie Hentzen will staff
the subcommittee. 3. Education and Training - Robin Huseby will chair this subcommittee. Lee Ann Barnhardt will staff the subcommittee. 4. Data Collections and Analysis - Paul Ronningen will chair this subcommittee.
Louie Hentzen will staff the subcommittee.
Louie stated the court improvement over the last three years has had a lot of people
appointed who are members of tribes, but they seem to not attend. It first started out with each
tribal ICWA worker. They weren't coming to the meetings and then they went to the ICWA
tribal social service directors and they were not finding time to get to the meetings as well, so
with Cheryl Kulas' title of Director of State Indian Affairs, we thought that this would be a
perfect way to try to engage the Native Americans in the state to have some interest. I am
encouraging you to be a member of this subcommittee (ICWA). Cheryl Kulas stated that she would certainly not mind being a member of this
subcommittee, and that she is interested in all of the subcommittees; however, she feels that she
is just too new to be chairing a subcommittee and would like to learn more in regards to this
committee. Louie Hentzen stated over the last couple of years the person that has helped us out in that
area mostly has been Jody Gillette from the Native American Training Institute. She has come to
some meetings and given us her view on things, which has been very helpful. Paul has a liaison
in his office as well, Theresa Snyder, and she can be invited to serve on subcommittees. She was
the chair of the last one and did a good job. Lee Ann stated she will send out minutes from the last ICWA committee meetings to
Dennis Herbeck so he can familiarize himself with this subcommittee. Louie stated the only
observation that he would make is that we don't have any judges chairing any of these
subcommittees. The judges' schedules are very hectic and it is difficult for them to get to the
meetings. They will be encouraged to participate on as many of the subcommittees as possible,
because it is very clear that Congress wants the judicial branch participation. Paul is going to be
getting ready for the next Children and Family Services review for the state of North Dakota,
which will be in April of 2008 and they have encouraged that judicial officers be on the review
teams. Louie is still trying to recruit some judges and referees to see if they want to sign up for
that. Paul said State's Attorneys would also be invited. He stated that for the last Child and
Family Services reviews Grand Forks county was one of the sites along with Cass County,
Burleigh County and Morton County back in 2001, right after 9/11. The feds are bringing in a
team in April 2008 of about 30-35 individuals to do these reviews in three sites and those
individuals will be matched with 30-35 North Dakotans to review 65 cases. Cass County again
will be ground zero for the review as it is the largest county in the state. There must be a large
enough county to do a case draw and there are only 5 counties in the state of North Dakota that
qualify for the case pull, which are Burleigh, Morton, Cass, Grand Forks, Ward and maybe Stark
counties. We are anticipating a draw of sites sometime around Christmas. We will eliminate the
other 47 or 48 counties so we know where we are going to focus. The social workers are well
aware that their cases may be pulled and reviewed by this group of people. The feds will be in
this week from Denver and we will be conducting a Polycom for all 8 region Human Service
Centers on Friday from 10:00am until 12:00 noon if anyone would like to attend. Louie Hentzen stated that some of the opportunities that Lee Ann talks about in the
education grant is the opportunity for some of the members of this committee to attend the court
improvement meeting to be held December 10-11, 2007 in Washington D.C. He strongly
recommend that Chair Judge Clapp attend. Louie and Paul will attend on Monday, which is the
court improvement meeting and Tuesday is the agency and courts day. They will talk about those
issues all day long. The conference will continue on Wednesday and ½ day Thursday of that
week, but it's mostly for the social service group and won't be necessarily that the court people
will have to be there. Louie will get information out to this committee about when it is held.
Monies would be in the education grant to attend. They talk about the federal laws and
everything that is coming down from Congress on a constant basis. You learn what other states
are doing and on how they are addressing the issues, as well as how they are spending their grant
funds. Very good ideas come from this, like the idea on the data collection grant from the
Wisconsin group. Minnesota is very active, they have a good court improvement project. They
have a staff attorney that conducts it out of their office and is paid out of their grant funds. It is
strongly recommended that any members of this group that would like to attend, should attend. Lee Ann added we have plenty of money this year because we didn't spend everything we
had allocated up front. This would be the year to attend and we could actually send a nice
contingency from our state. She added that last year the Children's Justice Initiative Task Force
met and issued a report. The former members of the committee received a copy of the final
report. A copy of the report will be sent to everyone as there are issues that relate directly to this
committee. Some other groups have dealt with some of the recommendations, but some of them
would get filtered back to this group to further explore and make recommendations. Peter Welte asked in relation to the subcommittees, are they multi-disciplinary or are
they just court improvement people? Louie answered anyone who is interested in child welfare issues and are interested in that
particular subcommittee can come and join your conversations. Peter directed this to Paul that if he is looking for somebody who really understands data
collection from the state's attorneys perspective, his administrative assistant (Candy Hess) was
on a pilot project for a program and they are constantly trying to put together useful statistics in
the office for criminal files and also the civil and juvenile files. She would be very useful to that
group because she understands it from both sides. Louie stated any members of this committee who want to suggest names to participate in
any subcommittees, should contact the chairs. We want as much input from all perspectives that
we can get. Lee Ann stated anyone who would like to use a formal letter of invitation to join a
particular subcommittee may use the court improvement letterhead as it would make it easier for
someone to accept working on a committee if they have an official letter asking them versus
somebody just calling them. We can provide it if needed. Dennis Herbeck asked of the history of the previous subcommittee that he will be
chairing and if he could receive correspondence. Lee Ann stated there are really good minutes from the ICWA subcommittee and there is a
membership list in the file. Louie added that he suggests to Chair Judge Clapp that this
committee convene about three times per year, which would allow in between those meetings,
the subcommittees to meet and do their work and report back to this committee, rather than
conduct it four times per year, there wouldn't be enough time for the subcommittees to meet. Chair Judge Clapp stated she agrees with Louie that we need to give the subcommittees
time to form and to look at the history as to where they have been and where they are to go with
it. This committee will meet again in October or November as a whole. There is no date in
mind today, but an e-mail will be sent out with two or three options and see how many conflicts
there are. Louie added this committee can meet elsewhere, other than Bismarck. Historically, this
committee met quite a bit in Jamestown because it was more central. There are things that go on,
such as the SBAND meeting, which is in Bismarck this year and this was an opportune time to
have this meeting. The SBAND next June is in Grand Forks. If we decide to do a meeting in
June of next year and associate it with the SBAND meeting, it could be in another site. Lee Ann stated if we want to just use phone meeting, a conference call can be set up. We
will pay travel expenses for people who aren't state employees, if you have private attorneys or
other people on a committee, just let us know for reimbursement purposes. Robin Huseby stated they are getting a new website application for the Commission of
Legal Counsel for Indigents and they are going to be inputting a case management system. They
will be inputting how many hours the attorneys work on cases and what kind of cases. What she
is hoping is that they are going to be able to gather statistics and to know on deprivation matters
and TPR's how many of the parties have attorneys. It would be a very good comparison because
North Dakota is getting hit hard on not providing counsel on cases at various stages of the
proceedings and it would be very interesting to look at the data and how many TPR's are filed
and how many parties have attorneys. Louie indicated they wanted to give us a higher rating than we deserved, but he had to
correct them and tell them that their assumption is that we appoint an attorney for every child is
incorrect. They were looking at the rule under the domestic rules. We have no rules for juvenile
cases, which we are working on in the Juvenile Policy Board. But, it went from a grade 60D to a
grade 35F. Louie stated that North Dakota is one of the 17 states that does not require a legal
guardian ad litem for children. There have been some federal cases on it, but this non-profit
group that graded this survey are advocates for legal guardian ad litems for children. Paul asked that when Louie, Paul and the Chief Justice were in New York they had
developed a plan, and is there anything from that plan that is put together that this chair should be
keyed in on at this point in time so that we move some of that forward? Louie stated that we can provide this group with the goals that were set. It was reported to
the administrative council. The topic that received the most discussion and greatest buy in was
the concept of mediation and child welfare cases. Administrative Council was very receptive to
the idea and thought that would be something that needs to be pursued. I am not sure if the Chief
wants this committee to do that or if he wants the policy board to do that. But one of things that I
recall is getting more people to the table like the education people who did not come to many of
our CFSR reviews around the state. The Chief also invited them to participate in his Task Force
and they sent a teacher from the prison. I will send out our goals from or trip to New York.