Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article about the state’s long running, expensive, and, so far, not terribly successful, efforts to implement a state-wide computer system for its courts. (h/t Indiana Law Blog).
The project is now at least seven years old and has no firm completion date or budget.
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.
Senator Kenley plans to take a look at what is going on. Ironically, the court computer system is named “Odyssey.” Readers might recall the Odyssey as a tale where the hero wanders for 10 years just to get back home.
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.
This might be part of the problem — a desire to make the system all things to all people. One day it might get implemented and be pretty slick, but mainly it’s been something that lawyers and courts have been aware was in the works but not making any discernible progress. That impression probably isn’t entirely accurate. Some version of it has been rolled out in a few counties – DeKalb, Floyd, Monroe, Tipton, and Warren.
One of the big problems was hiring Computer Associates, initially. They and their software couldn’t do the job, and that contract was canceled in 2005. But, even that’s getting to be ancient history. Tyler Technologies is now working on the project and has apparently been paid $5.5 million of the $7.7 million it’s to be paid for software licensing. The money comes out of a $7 document filing fee paid in most civil and criminal cases. Those fees generate about $7 million in revenue per year. The Chief Justice asked for the fee to be raised this year, but the General Assembly declined.
Another problem is that data currently being accumulated on existing county court systems will have to be made compatible with the new system. The longer the delays in implementing the new system, the tougher this problem becomes. In fact, I believe some counties held off on implementing computer systems at all for fear of having wasted money when the state system came along. I believe White County, for example, held off on computerizing its operations for a long time out of this fear. If memory serves, the Computer Associates contract cancellation marked the point at which White County could no longer keep waiting. According to the Journal Gazette article, LaGrange County seems to have been in much the same situation.
But here is an interesting wrinkle:
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.
The part about interest on judgments is true. Every civil money judgment in Indiana accrues interest at the rate of 8% per year by statute. Most courts don’t track interest at all and simply have the judgment holder keep track. If there is some dispute between judgment creditor and debtor on the subject of interest, courts will entertain a hearing on the matter, but mostly there aren’t any disputes. But, some courts have been known to give judgment creditors a hard time about seeking to be paid for interest on the judgment and require arbitrary procedures be followed to have it imposed. Or, occasionally, Clerks’ offices will tell judgment debtors they have paid in full when they haven’t accounted for judgment interest.
Another issue where courts seem to diverge widely – and this might be an aside because I don’t know if the Odyssey system would fix this – is on the subject of charging for postage on sending out orders. For example, if I want to compel a judgment debtor to appear at a Proceeding Supplemental (a hearing where the judgment debtor appears and testifies to his or her income and assets), some courts are requiring pre-paid postage for sending out orders. Some are requiring the postage involved when sending it from their court to an out-of-county Sheriff. Really, they can be all over the map without any obvious authority or at least no local court rules having been promulgated. Uniformity in a lot of these cases would be welcome, though I don’t suspect you really need a terrifically expensive computer system to get it.
The Judicial Technology Automation Committee was established in 2001 by HEA 1130. (The committee existed prior to that point but as a committee organized by the Supreme Court Administration; any funds expended prior to the 2001/2002FY were spent from the Supreme Court administration fund.) Since then, appropriations have totalled $65,507,819. Detail by year:
2001/02 $ 2,800,000 ($1.8M of dedicated funds and $1M in transferred funds.)
2002/03 – $ 2,800,000 ($1.8M of dedicated funds and $1M in transferred funds.)
2003/04 – $ 5,755,825 ($50,000 in federal funds.)
2004/05 – $ 6,521,407 ($50,000 in federal funds.)
2005/06 – $ 9,715,576 ($50,000 in federal funds.)
2006/07 – $ 9,168,456 ($50,000 in federal funds.)
2007/08 – $ 14,916,780 (All dedicated funds.)
2008/09- $ 13,829,775 (All dedicated funds.)
Dear Doug:
I am the owner of a Hoosier computer company that has to compete against the Indiana Supreme Court’s Odyssey system that Clerk Phillips herein says has cost taxpayers over $65 MILLION. By the Indiana Supreme Court’s on admission, this cost will exceed $100 MILLION at a pace of $10 to $12 MILLION per year again per JTAC’s own admission.
Ms Beverly Elliot, Lagrange County Clerk, summed up the reason why most courts do not want nor need the Odyssey system. The simple truth is that the Odyssey system is a step backward for many counties and totally unnecessary for most all counties because there are systems already in place like my system, http://www.doxpop.com at a fraction of the cost of Odyssey that already link courts statewide and can adhere to the stated standards set by the Indiana Supreme Court.
My Hoosier taxpaying company has our statewide case management system implemented in nearly 50 Hoosier counties. CSI’s statewide system has linked courts statewide since 2002 and our case management system was the first in the state to interfaces with the BMV and Indiana Department of Revenue in 2002, law enforcement, prosecutors and users can access public court information via the internet (www.doxpop.com). CSI offers benefits that Odyssey has not implemented like a document management system to capture court documents electronically and the state’s first ever statewide criminal e-filing system. Effective July 1, 2009, a new law forces the Indiana Supreme Court to finally start sharing information with their e-Citation system, Protective Order Registry and their Odyssey system thereby nearly eliminating the need for Odyssey.
The Indiana Supreme Court uses the Odyssey system to compete against my taxpaying company using nearly $100 MILLION of taxpayer money. Unfortunately, Counties that do not want or do not need Odyssey must continue to pay millions of dollars every year to the Indiana Supreme Court/JTAC to fund Odyssey.
CSI has some revolutionary new advancements like the ability to post public court documents on-line (e.g. http://www.doxpop.com) and a statewide criminal e-filing system. CSI must get approval from our competitor, the Indiana Supreme Court, before we can implement these advancements. Hopefully these advancement will be approved which will be even more reasons that Counties will not need or want to switch to the extremely costly, very risky and unnecessary Odyssey system.
If you would like to learn more about CSI, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Kevin Cook
I’m hoping Linda Phillips is still following this thread and can answer a few questions for us:
1) Roughly how much does it cost to maintain the Tippecanoe county case management system for one year? (The folks pulling out their calculators will want to know next that Tippecanoe Co. is about 5% of Indiana by population.)
2) Does the Tippecanoe county case management system provide on-line access to cases for other agencies and the public?
3) Is Tippecanoe county’s case management system capable of calculating the 8% interest that Mathias cited as an example? That is, would Tippecanoe County be able to comply if the State Court opted to address the consistency issue by enforcing the rules?
4) Are other clerks out there following this thread? what does your case management system cost? Does your system prevent you from complying with rules?
Answers to your questions, Nick:
1. I really don’t know; the costs of maintaining the system are paid within the Commissioners budget. My suspicion is that they are likely to be a fraction of the costs associated with Odyssey because Maximus Justice Solutions, our vendor, is spreading out the fixed costs among a much larger pool of clients. However, I would comment that whatever the Commissioners are paying is likely not comparable to whatever we would pay to be part of Odyssey because, frankly moving to Odyssey would be a huge step backwards for us.
2. We routinely exchange information with other agencies electronically. We have vastly more public access to case information than is being contemplated with Odyssey. My understanding of the public access with Odyssey is that it is little more than a list of cases with plaintiff and defendants names; our system provides access to the chronological case summary as well as on-line payment of traffic tickets, criminal misdemenaor and D felony cases.
3. Yes.
4. I’ll point this out to some other clerks but I will comment that counties and clerks across Indiana vary in their understanding and use of technology. Odyssey is a huge step forward if you have been keeping your records in big books; it is, at this point, not an improvement for Tippecanoe County.
Thanks Linda, for adding this information and your thoughts. I’ll join you in suggesting that other clerks take a look at this thread.
For the sake of transparency, I should disclose that I work for Doxpop, the company that Kevin Cook referred to in his post. We cooperate with county clerks and courts to maintain interfaces that allow us to share data from 5 different case management systems used by 136 courts spread across 47 counties in Indiana. We provide truly free access to this court data to over 1500 users in government agencies. (“Truly free” = not supported by your taxes.) Our request to be allowed to include data from the Odyssey CMS in our system has been pending since October 2007.
Like Kevin and Linda, I have opinions, but I’m asking questions on this thread because I clearly have a personal interest that may taint my opinions. I’d like to hear from folks who don’t have a stake in any outcome other than serving their constituents well enough to be chosen again at the next election. Here is a general question that other clerks might be able to answer:
The currently supported alternatives to Odyssey in Indiana are the CSI system and the CourtView (formerly Maximus) system. Have the clerks and courts using these systems identified any features available through Odyssey that is not available in their current systems?
If so, in light of Linda’s information about costs incurred by the State so far, do you judge that the value of those features is worth the portion of the funding that has been borne by your local citizens?
Those two disgruntled vendors and that one lady above share a bottle of vino? Their Q&A is clearly rehearsed and they omit truthful facts that would prove they are not being honest. Funkhauser wants transparency. I’ve been following the court’s project: CSI bid for the court’s CMS project, and lost, twice. They loved the court’s technology mission — they loved it right up until the time they lost the bid. They now say advanced technology to help courts is not necessary!
But wait — Cook NOW says CSI has “revolutionary” ideas but needs the court’s blessing. Are we to feel sorry for him? I doubt seriously if ANY of his ideas are “revolutionary” and most likely only mirror many systems already out there ahead of him. Oh, I get it. The courts should cough up money for some sort of revolutionary technology supposedly waiting in the wings; stay away from your own Court’s free first-rate system but get out your checkbook and buy CSI’s stuff, whatever it is.
Courts using CSI’s software are NOT linked statewide; they may be INDEPENDENTLY linked to one or two state agencies, but they are NOT linked with each other across county lines. Linking the courts has been the court’s unwavering mission and CSI knows it.
Many states’ courts have already deployed revolutionary I.T. structures — Indiana being one with the court’s excellent Odyssey technology. And $100+ mil price tag? Cook is delusional and dishonest. The court’s first CMS vendor CA returned all the money it was paid plus $1 million more when they left the project and that was put toward the current system. All this is or has been on the court’s website. With respect to CSI — What has it has cost the financially strapped counties these past long 25+ years, having to deal with more than one vendor to do what the Court is already doing with its one free data sharing system? More than one vendor, training, software, software upgrades, maintenance (times 50 in CSI’s house – a never-ending $ cha ching paid to them; oh, when CSI came on the scene there were not many, if any, court cms’s from which to choose, so only 50 counties over 25 long years, is, actually, not that great) for the past 25+ years for all those independent stand-alone systems. Why did CSI, Doxpop lose the bid? No doubt the court and the many others associated with the decision-making had their reasons, good reasons. Ms. Kelly, Odyssey IS successful. Check their website. (Did you speak with anyone from the Court/JTAC before you wrote your article and get the facts, and if so, to whom did you speak? It doesn’t read like you did.) Odyssey is out there, being deployed to the courts right now today and there’s a waiting list. A statewide data-sharing system is already greatly benefitting Indiana’s citizens. To Cook: Why do you keep saying your company is tax-paying? It’s kind of strange. You say that like you’re afraid you’re going to be audited. To Doug: Contact JTAC anytime you wish to get ALL the FACTS about the project.