Minutes
The meeting was opened with a welcome to all. Keithe Nelson reviewed a number of personnel issues. The presiding judge is the appointing authority and any notices of employment to the state court administrator's office should have the presiding judge's name on it, not a supervisor's name. He then discussed comp-time and work hours. The most that employees are allowed to accrue is 40 hours. Supervisors need to monitor the use of comp-time very closely. Rather than providing comp-time, employees should be sent home when they reach the 40 hours in any given week. At the present time, approximately 30% of all employees are carrying some comp-time. This is an issue that needs to be monitored and managed by supervisors to reduce the number of hours of comp-time on the book. The proposed leadership course that would be conducted by the Institute for Court Management was discussed. Mr. Nelson indicated he had outlined the project to the Supreme Court and that there is support to move forward. It will involve 20 individuals from North Dakota in the bi-state effort that will include 20 court personnel from South Dakota. The course of instruction will be 2-3 years in length. He then discussed the issuance of business cards and indicated there is a policy in place and that the use of business cards by employees needs to be approved by the presiding judge and the chief justice. Mr. Nelson then discussed years of service gifts for employees. Employees cannot be provided money for gifts. He encouraged the districts to use the gifts provided through the Bennett Brothers catalogs to ensure the gifts are being awarded properly. He then discussed that the court had approved the role of a public information officer for the Supreme Court. It is a project that will be handled on a contract basis and the initial initiative will be toward the development of a speaker's bureau. Kurt Schmidt then discussed issues relating to the technology division. He responded to questions raised by attendees. He indicated that support for Office Vision ended May 31, 2001. A replacement is being sought for Office Vision, but there is a company that is still supporting Office Vision independent of IBM. He discussed the need for backup procedures in the office. If there are problems with the system, personnel should call the Help Desk. If the Help Desk knows of a system problem, they will contact someone in each district so that individual can notify the other offices. He indicated he would develop a written procedure. Discussion followed on the implementation of data warehouse. This will be in operation within the next couple weeks and should provide enhanced services to agencies and organizations inquiring into our database for publicly accessible information. Carla Kolling and Greg Wallace covered a number of human resource issues. They reviewed the risk management training needs in each judicial district. Ms. Kolling indicated that the annual risk management training program can be tailored locally. Outside speakers can be used to accomplish the risk management training each year. The issue of work hours came up and employees must be allowed a break after 5 hours of work. If the break is not 30 minutes in duration the employee must be paid. Noon luncheon meetings are considered work time. Employees can give this up, but, if there is a noon meeting, they must be given a 30 minute break at some other time during the day. Mr. Wallace distributed the work/time calculation memorandum and reviewed it with attendees. Work time sheets are to be sent to the district administrative office. Employees must work 40 hours in a week before they are eligible for any overtime consideration. Holidays are to be paid hour for hour and no overtime is provided. Jim Ganje then discussed the procedures to be followed for the issuance of executions in garnishment proceedings. He then discussed extradition proceedings indicating they are special proceedings and should probably have a separate code in all UCIS. Until there are changes to the program, they should be treated as criminal cases for data entry purposes. Written directions on how to file extradition proceedings will be sent out to clerks of court. Ted Gladden and Greg Wallace reviewed the new juror payment schedule. Procedures need to be developed to reduce the impact of the $50 per day costs wherever possible. Each district was asked to gather information on the summoning practices in each county. This information is to be provided to Mr. Gladden so these procedures can be reviewed statewide. The objective is to bring citizens in one time. If they are not selected for jury service, that would constitute service and they should be released. They should be on the list to be summoned for a month in the four largest counties and no more than two months in the other 49 counties. Greg then discussed juvenile court recoupment procedures, juvenile case fines, and how these matters will be handled through UCIS. He also reviewed juvenile case data entry on formal proceedings and the role of the clerk's office and the juvenile court office. As the modifications to UCIS are made, directions will be sent to everyone regarding data entry and monitoring responsibilities. Andrea Schmidt then discussed the changes to UCIS to affect the management of juvenile court recoupment and juvenile fines. Deb Simenson and Paulette Reule discussed the creation of desk manuals by employees and how they are achieving cross-training of personnel in their respective offices. Mr. Gladden indicated that cross-training and the creation of the desk manuals has been a consistent recommendation in all of the management reviews that have been conducted. This recommendations will be included in all future reviews. Clerks were encouraged to visit with Ms. Reule and Ms. Simenson to review their desk manuals and cross-training procedures, encouraging clerks to begin the process of reviewing these issues relating to training. Jana Thielges and Dion Ulrich then discussed comp-time issues and reinforced the need to monitor and control the use of comp-time. Ms. Thielges indicated that draft financial guidelines will be out of comment by the end of October. Ms. Thielges reviewed procedures where under payment of traffic tickets occurs. The money should be sent back to the motorist. Mr. Ulrich will prepare a memorandum to all clerks of court on how to handle over and under payments. Mr. Ulrich then discussed the new codes to be used for expenses. He stressed that employees signing checks in the clerk's office need verification from the initiator as to the payee information so that the right payee and the right amounts are being recorded. Diligence is requested by all clerk personnel to reduce the number of errors in preparing checks. After discussion of the monthly judgment report charge of $10, it was agreed there needs to be clarification by Keithe Nelson to clerks of district court. Mr. Ulrich indicated that in response to the question of the use of the language line, he would send out guidelines on the process for using the language line. Administrative personnel were asked to get back to Mr. Gladden by October 19, 2001, with procedures of how they are using the jury exit questionnaires. The issue of developing standards for data entry on UCIS was discussed. The clerks were asked to do this in their offices and get back to Mr. Gladden with some recommended time standards. It was discussed that all data needs to be timely if the data is to have any usefulness. He indicated there had been agreement to process requests for record searches within two days, possibly this standard would be a good one to use, as well. |