Judiciary Committee - Senate and House

Good morning senate and house joint meeting of a judiciary will come to order at this point in time we need to approve the minutes from our december fifth meeting to have a motion of a motion to have a second I see a second in a discussion all in favor of place any opposed is him motion curious sir stubborn field you have any comments you'd like to make today to move on well with that since they were feels ready to move on I appreciate everybody that has a come today I know that it's a busy time with what's going on tomorrow but this is such an important topic before we get started I do want to call your attention to we have a document up your way only have to and copies cause it's a big document but it's the district court resource assessment packet it's all online you can read it online but if you would like a hard copy at some point we do have some appear that are available but I want to point that out before I forget about it this morning we're going to take up our time with the ministrative office of courts you know we've been in this task force kind of looking at different segments the last time we met we had the minister believe in the county association this time we're going to look at this issue from the administrative office of courts they've been very gracious to really plan this meeting for soon to talk about it and I want us to be thank we're gonna have start thinking outside the box because what's coming as all of you are aware of it for anyone who's watching the reason why we're having this task force is the voters ten fifteen years ago voted to make district court state district courts. But within that there was not a mechanism to really make it all a state district court so we're looking at that we're looking at the funding we're looking at the issues of how. Fines and fees are collected and dispersed we're looking there with the aoc this morning and you'll notice our topics this morning we're going to talk about that along with a court security issues case management there's just a lot that goes into it because this court has now gone beyond what we are some of us older more seasoned people like representative ubank's over there would remember that it's really just it's not just a traffic court anymore and they take on a lot of different issues and so we've got to meet that we have a deadline in which we're going to have to do a report so that we can get some legislation started for the next session so without that and if there are no questions from the committee who are going to move on to the gender item and I would ask the the folks on a gender item c marty sullivan director administrative off the support christian clark director the legal service division which is the district courts come forward tim half hold half I can never get your name right i'm close to court information systems in bin borrowing staff at treaty if you'll just take a seat and I will let you all each introduce yourself and you are recognized to begin your presentation good morning everybody a marty sullivan i'm the director of the administrative office of the courts. And time although from the director of the court information systems division for the administrative office of the courts and apparently the slide deck driver. No when it's read you're good. Okay i'm christine clark and the director of the legal services division at the administrative office of the courts and i'm bid borrowing a mistaff attorney at the administrative office the court specifically devoted the district court. Thank you for being here so whichever order you want to go you are recognized I wanted to thank you all for being here to get started and this is not on the agenda but I wanted to take just two seconds the new building will open this for and i've tried to reach out to everybody in a few have it had an opportunity to come see it yet please do we've got tons of meeting space over there we've got a civic education center we've got a model court room for kids and so it's really going to be a big asset for the state for many many years to come and we hope that this committee will meet their one sometime soon so again appreciate the opportunity i'm going to turn it to turn over to christian clark. Okay. So thank you for the opportunity to calm and speak with you all today hopefully we'll be able to answer many of the questions that you have about district courts and also how those refunded in some of the common issues related to those will start out just with an overview of the issues that we've been asked to discuss today they should be appearing on the screen for you and then will move right in to an overview of the district court resource assessment board back in two thousand and seven this was a few years after a minute eighty pounds. The legislature had the wisdom to form the district court resource assessment board and this particular board in its own finding said that its account was to have a three tier unified court system it identified the fact that based on the availability of local resources that we had unequal access. In an inequitable distribution of judicial services it also was attempting to address the shortage of circuit court resources and so with the min mid eighty state district judges began accepting some referrals of. Circuit court matters there the district court resource and assessment board is really designed to determine where the placement of new state district courts are going to be over the last ten years or so twenty years the focus has been primarily on what the map looks like yeah. Twenty twenty four we currently have sixty six state district judges. There over thirty nine districts they have four year terms and their some information about their jurisdiction here. We still have tin local district judges then for you all who are not. As involved and living in this world as we are the primary difference between a state district judge and a local district judge is whether or not there are full time judge or night. So ten local judges left nine counties for your terms there but in twenty twenty five degree will have completed its initial work of transitioning all of the district courts to state district courts will end up with seventy state district judges forty one districts and again four year terms. One of the things they're decrab has been tasked with is not only the creation of the map but also going back to look at the resources. That district courts have and whether or not those maps need to be reconsidered whether or not the departments that are currently existing because the legislature has deemed them necessary should remain. Moving on to leg audit issues in district court for those of you who are on the leg audit committee you have probably heard me say some of these things before but we frequently have district courts who have repeated findings in like audit issues and some of this has to do with the complicated fee fond distribution some of it is just not complying with the processes and the procedures that have been outlined in disrecord accounting law. Part of it is we don't have a unified state case management system that has not only the case management start of it but then also the accounting side to keep track of all the. One of the biggest repeat findings that we see though is this idea of an identified funds this is where courts have bonds and they can't properly apply it to a particular case and so those balances tend to build and build and build that's normally due to. Some type of issue with proceeding. Christian is clark I guess I should say would you on this unidentified. Because that is such a big issue can you maybe if you know explain how some of these get unidentified may be in within the collection of their initial fine or field or whatever and what happens at that point in time some of those issues so that we can have a little better understanding sir so with district courts. Each city and county has the opportunity to designate who they want to service the collector for their district court district courts also have citi cases and they have county cases so that means that for many of the district courts depending on city or county darket you have a different designated collector. Historically designated collectors have been law enforcement so for citi cases it would probably be the local police department for county cases it would probably be the local sheriff's office. When law enforcement receipts in funds. If they don't receipt in the funds with all of the information that you all have told them to use in district court accounting law and then they turn that over to the court clerk sometimes the court clerks not able to tie that to a case so one of the examples that are frequently give is if representative dollar got a speeding ticket. But I go in to pay her ticket for her and they received the money in my name they received it as christian clark. I'm not going to appear on the docket. And so when representative dalby cases called their won't necessarily be funds to apply to her case but likewise I don't have a case on the docket so those funds are what we call and identified funds. That's how you get those. You can resolve those it just takes a lot of work but when you comply with the requirements of just a court accounting law and are making sure that you're receiving processes or proper then you minimize those that's one of the advantages of using the accounting system that the state offers is it helps cut down on there because those are required fields. Almost all day long about leg audit issues and district court accounting bed because we've got other speakers and i'm assuming you all have other questions i'm gonna move on to the training. So district courts are both judges and clerks receive multiple trainings on an annual basis by aoc the district court judges have those spring conferences and fall conferences and then for our district court clerks you are primarily task with. The administrative side of the clerical side the receipting the deposits all of that the distributions at the end of the month they have four different meetings so there is a february certification meeting or half the clerks attend there's an annual meeting where all the clerks at the end then there's just a chief clerk sortification meeting and and then november certification meeting. I pulled training records for the last five years and we have provided thirteen trainings that were specific too district court accounting type practices whether it was banking and billing or a farn fee distribution or address income and leg audit issues and out of those thirteen trainings the instructors have ranged anywhere from staff attorneys to finance directors at the city level to even leg audit comes over and helps us with that we also provide other support when you have a court who's in need of resolving like audit issues being and are both regularly talk to you. County treasurers city treasurers and also court staff to to. Help resolve those issues. For those who were on the courts case management system or the state wide we also have it helped ask that available to them to help resolve the counting issues and then we also offer what's called the court management program for almost anybody who's employed in their state court system it's a basically a three year program and one of the courses that is offered as a budget and fiscal management correspond i'm one of the instructors for the we have a question for you senator love you recognized. I'm over here to your left thank you madame chair chris nothing have i've run into you in the audit committee yesterday they got a committee in so my question I have kind of a two or three percent number one does the court does soon the county system that you all have is there a charge to that system guy do you are charged the I guess the local entities to utilize its system we denied that's one of the advantage of the state having a case management system is there is no charge for that and like some of the third party vendors and time wall address that later but most some of the courts are using third party vendors and they do have a recording charge but the state does not charge a fee to use our software in so I guess i'm madam chair this won't be a conversation with with us between us but i'm i'm kind of a process to war these local entities were not using their system if number one there is an issue number two for now if we're not charging any vitamin. It would be a benefit to themselves so one of some of the reasons why they're saying that they're not new to loss in the state system. If overall out of provide some more detail and a little bit when i'm reporting out on our case management effort but the the short story is this aging legacy system is very difficult to learn how to use it was built on a format of a style of of interaction that's that's practically not used to they anymore but it's it really gets down to its it's hard to learn it's hard to use for our courts that have been on it for a long time they get comfortable with it but for most of the courts that learning curve is is so steep we we basically stop rolling it out because it was too hard for them to use and i'll i'll talk to you to light if if I may about our efforts to replace that that aging system okay so I guess man share i'm thinking now you you send the ageing legacy system is this the same system that you're talking about christian so yes we have we refer to it is context and it's the age in case management system that time is also referring to and it has that accounting component so it does prevent many many like added issues if if you're willing to use it but it's also the main reason why we're currently developing the new case management system we want to build a product and you know her we talk about this too during the leg audit committee meeting we want to build a product that all the courts are going to want to use so that they're not forced onto it. This. You good senator. What what you will come back to you don't worry we're here we're here for the morning so we're going with that senator tucker recognized thank you manager I think i'm I think i'm good for now because that I was just going to follow up on center eleven items curious to hear where we are on the case management system that's being developed and you are going to get to that and yeah hopefully that's gonna be a a successor system to the one that we have now in and hopefully everybody's going to want to use it but I just I don't know where things stand on curious for an update on that so i'll just i'll just wait till we get to that point. Okay. So one of the other issues that i've been asked to address is the complexity of the fee and far and assessment and distribution and of course this is all a matter of statute it's based on word your predecessors and you all as well have decided. Is going to be so we're in an interesting point now pre nineteen ninety five we didn't have uniform court cost or filing fees all of these were local court costs local filing fees they were used to fun local programs. In ninety five with the wisdom of the legislature. There were findings that the current system of funding again was creating an equity with the level of judicial services. There was a finding that the current method of financing of the state judicial system had become so complex as it made the administration of the system impossible. There was also a lack of reliable data. That. Previous comprehensive change in the current funding system and then the other thing that the legislature did in ninety five as they said we're going to have uniform filing fees and court cost and we're going to prohibit the addition of new costs to fund special programs or as we have moved away from nineteen ninety five there have been. Almost thirty different new court cost or special fees that have been added to fund these very special programs again as we move away from ninety five the institutional memory and where where we were at that time and the reasons for the changes have been forgotten. So now we're in a situation where. Post ninety five to date we do have uniform court cost and fees state wide a retain share of those court costs and filing fees remain local and that's the dollar amount that the programs locally are supposed to use to fund. Um. Things like. County law libraries. Yeah. A portion of the public defender system. Some of those fees will actually find operations of the court to a small degree they will also find it gets. Emergency management anyway if you look at the city administration of justice found a statute it'll tell you a laundry list of what you all have said those funds have to be used for likewise there's a county administration of justice found in it also has a list of the programs that you all say in those retain shares of court costs have to be used for. Anything that is over and above. The retain share that spend determined for either a a city or a county has to come to the state and that goes into what known as the administration of justice found. You all barely routinely and regularly here about the health of the administration of justice found and how currently it's not healthy. The programs there's probably twenty or so programs who receive funding directly out of it. Are. Not receiving a hundred percent of their appropriation about thirty five percent of what is appropriate is what they're receiving currently. When we talk about the actual disbursement of filing fees and court costs in the power point there's an overview of where local. Uhm funds go in the sense of our civil and small claims filing fees. Court dictorology fees i've given you some of the miscellaneous civil fees there to show you what those dollar amounts are so that you can refer back to those when we talk about disbursements of. Criminal court cost in traffic court cost i've given you a reference they are of what those amounts currently are the statutory authority for them and again where that money goes. And then also the domestic violence cramped the bill that's one that frequently receives attention during the. Legislative sessions. Generally speaking when we talk about fine money which is different than court cost is different than filling fees most fan many actually stays local there are a few exceptions so there will be a portion of a fine that comes to the state or comes to fund a particular program that generally if it's a city case that money will stay locally and go to a city if it's a county case the farm many will stay local and go there there's a few other examples of some common fees that have also been added on those are like jail booking fees jailed a frame at these their specially core program user fees there's public defender user fees warrant service fees and then you've got fees for folks who were a pre trial for their. Alternative administration fee for example if you're going to be on pre trial release many times it's less expensive to have you been monitored as opposed to remaining incarcerated so there's fees like that. That leads us into the court security portion of the presentation they are insurance tomorrow I have a question representative richardson your recognized they came out of chair. Looking at the. Some of the court costs when you look at a month tested the wise and things like that individuals that are paying these fees and are unable to pay him at once rate they get a pay amount over time there's a fee assessed to them to pay it out over time. That's correct so that's the installment payment fee it's basically two five dollars installments that have been stacked on top of each other and so yes if you can't pay your your balance in for. Within twenty four hours a basically the senate is coming down the court campus you want a payment plan it has to be based in tailored on your individual ability to pay but there is the ten dollar mentally installment fee that is assessed so it is in the. So if if i'm if i'm paying like i'm supposed to i'm still paying a fee on top of what i'm already paying because I can't afford to pay and what does that fee go to so in circuit courts yet is broken down where a portion of it goes to what we call the circuit court automation fund a portion of it goes to whoever the designated collectors to defray the cost of collection a portion of it comes to the administration of justice found in district court it's broken down a little bit differently two dollars and fifty cents of it goes to the aoj I found. For a basically judicial farm collection enhancement that ultimately ends up coming to the administrative office of the court stir supplement the funding that we receive. Court court information systems operation two dollars and fifty cents i've ever stays local for the district court automation fund and then the other five dollars goes straight in to the administration of justice band account prop up the funding that's there for those twenty plus programs that are being funded out of it and has this always been in since ninety five I mean that additional fee has always been there yeah the ten dollars installment fee I don't believe it was in place and ninety five but it has been in place for quite a while and I could. I can get that information for you okay one last question manager your recognized if it were to go away what would be the impact. The impact would there would be a decrease amount of funding in the administration of just a span for the twenty or so programs that receive funding out of the it potentially would have a negative impact on our agency in the ability to fond court operations in many ways and then at a local level you would have issues with designated collectors which are typically the sheriff's office in circuit court may be losing personnel and then you would also on a local level have to have other funding streams to help provide for some of the technology related purchases that both district courts and circuit courts need is would you be able to give a breakdown of of of actuals of what those dollars if they were gone over the last several years what would the financial impact of that be we can look into there I can tell you that you know when we did the the task for study during the twenty one session that looked into the funding of court cost. We looked at that and we're talking about millions and millions of dollars we have all the information that DF and a can give us regarding what part of that comes to the state. And I mean it's millions probably and that's just in the installment the taxes are millions of dollars that people are paying the other portion of that that we struggle with and that we don't necessarily have a good number on is the amounts that remain local now we can do some what I call extrapolation if we know that this is the dollar amount that came to the state then by default these are the dollar amounts that would remain local and so we we have some guesses about what those amounts are and I can get those to you as well thank you members representative college you recognize for a question thank you too related questions and they're kind of related to work representative richardson was talking about first do we have any data about the the gross receipts in fines and fees broken down by circuit court and district court and also broken down you know by whether it's a fine or fee and secondly and and if not could we get it to the best of our ability in secondly do we have any day that we're information about who is paying these like what is the income level or what is the network on average or anything like that that gets to data about who's actually paying fines versus fees also if it's available now that's great and if not I just like to know what we can find out so when we talk about the fan portion there's very little data that aoc actually has regarding the amount of funds that are collected. Yes it is a court that is on the context system. Which. You know if some of the district courts are but there's only I think two of the circuit courts that actually use the accounting side of the at then we can provide that doubt it but generally speaking there are lots of gaps in the stature. Um as far as the fine part of it now the court cost in the filing fee yes that is information that df and a received monthly reports on from every single department of a district court and for each circuit court too so that dollar amount df and eight hours and we can put those together and then for the other part of your question with regard to do we know anything about the demographics of the individuals who were paying these we don't it's not a data point that gets collected but what we do now is that there is a statute that's out there that basically requires judges to do an individualized ability to pay determination so there when funds and fees are assessed and when those installment payments are set up that it it's they're supposed to take into consideration someone's actual ability to pay. Yeah. Two numbers I would like to see is how much the ten dollars pay what did we call it is the installment payment how much total are recording there that would tell us what we have to replace if we did away with it. Um. It's good to know all the things it goes for but how much money is it bringing in. In the second thing is how much is it bringing in compared to the to the actual fines. Not all the funds together but the fines that are being paid and installment. Are we chorging people four percent or we target on double because five percent I can live with double. I can't. So i'd like to know what that number is. Yes sir. The. You good center clark and voucher. So return your recognized for a question. Thank you madame share I just wanted to challenge on this is miss clark and mister solana I have spent some time on on this very question and my numbers are are dated by two years but we did look at this two years ago and the two hours and fifty cents that goes to the judicial fine enhancement fund was generating three point one million dollars at that point tom so you can double that because there's two pieces that are two fifty each so that's six point two million dollars total. And then the five dollars that went to the aoj fund which generating about four point eight million dollars per year at that point so we're talking about eleven million dollars I think it's in an you know christian set out she broke down exactly accurately about the breakdown of these funds but I think it's worth noting that the ten dollars installment fee in circuit court half of it goes to the free the cost of the collection say what you will about it but there's a rational relationship between the installment fee proceeds different the cost of collection the other five dollars on the circuit court goes to fund something else entirely in all ten dollars of the installment fee and district court funds things totally unrelated to the cost of collection so we are funding judicial branch items in this state including courtroom technology and other things through the payment of this installment fee and I just think that's a very important part of this discussion. Yeah. Representative flowers you're recognized thank you um my question. Isn't your main to what is. Printed or outlined in your report but it's something that I think i've as. About two you are in the last few years and met with the chief justice about uhm and that is the transparency of district court since they are not courts of record. Is that something that you all are looking at or that would be changed my understandings that would have to be changed. Umm by the supreme court. Is that something that you all are taking a position on in terms of recommendation. Since we're dealing with overhauling the district court. System. So i've never speak for the supreme court. I am always like not for but recommending since they are the one who overseas that I will say that there is an administrative supreme court order it's number four and that is the supreme court order that sets out whenever it record is required and when one is not required what we have seen with the court is that as. District courts of transition to state district courts and particularly when they are doing circuit court matters that are a better record is required. At this point the court has not extended there to what i'm not referred to is just the typical district court related matters which are going to be the criminal mister criminal and traffic type things than obviously in the civil small claims. I don't know whether or not that will be something they'll look into in the future to mars an election and we're gonna have a new chief justice and I imagine that whoever that new chief just as yours will have a new set of priorities so we'll see. Okay thank you. That's all our questions for right now so we'll move on to court security issues good morning and ben borrow staff attorney at the administrative office the courts talk a little bit about a court security and in district courts in in a very generalized way and I say that because district courts are all over the state of arkansas set up differently and have different resources so any analysis of district courts are the security in them. Really should you should be looking at three different factors security personnel facilities and in the local government relationships that produce the security in those courts in twenty twenty one there was a survey sent to the arkansas district judges requesting information on these factors and the following information that i'm going to provide is sort of just a high level of review of of what of what we believe that security looks like in industry courts and arkansas so as I said the first and likely the most important factor regarding court security and district courts is. Is correct security officers and their availability in all district courts and arkansas securities provided by either the city or the county under arkansas law chiefs of police are the ones like that and chiefs of police are the ones with statutory duty to provide security and arkansas in the district courts the cheaper police of meaning shall excute all process directed to him or her by the mayor and she'll attend by himself or herself or by someone else on the police force on the sitting of a district court to execute its orders and to preserve order there in. In fact the original language to the statute referred to police courts and so while the police chiefs have a duty to provide a security and district courts that's not reflective of the modern organization of district courts what we see is that district court we have district courts in arkansas that are funded both by the city and by the county we even have some district courts that are entirely county enterprises and so what you see is it is a mix of security being provided by both entities. So that situation has has led to a variety of local agreements and I would say that the majority of district courts in arkansas have security maintained by whichever entity happens to be holding court that day so very often in district courts they're dividing their dockets by a county day or a city day and so obviously on the county days you've got county officers sheriff's officers providing security city day police officers providing security if you have a mixed day than then perhaps both are there you even find the situation where. You have offers who are going to be testifying in the court that day providing security on that day and minority of courts have one law enforcement entity providing security and then even smaller minority have one law enforcement entity providing security and they are providing security not only on court days but also one days we're we're there is an actual court happening but people are still coming in to pay fines pay court costs and do business with the court and the question of how many officers are available at any on any given day is inconsistent and so is so is the functioning of full time security in any individual court that doesn't mean that there is an adequate security provided in these courts it just means that the law enforcement present at presence and training may not may not meet necessarily the best practices or all of the training standards so on the subject of training in two thousand and seven the legislature passed the court security act and among the other things that this act did as created a curriculum that many officers today when they attend the law enforcement academy they will take a eight hour court security course and they also offer this course as continuing education in their local jurisdiction often times certain shares dependence or police officers will be trained to to also offer this course locally. It's important to note that that lack of full time security court security officers means that even in situations where there's excellent law enforcement presence they may not have received this training or they lack day to day security responsibilities in that court and so what i'm saying by that is is that you can have officers show up on any given day to provide security but there's not necessarily an organized plan behind that or it's the same officer showing up again and again that provided the same consistent security. The next thing would be a facilities. Locations of district quarter designated by statute and a department of district court just means a physical location where court is held so in the continuing discussion about this we may refer to a department of district court all that means is a city or a tech or town they're almost all named in the statutes after a city or a town. According to administrative order eighteen of the spring court all departments must be able to hear all types of dockets and so that means that they have to be able to hear the traffic docket the criminal docket the small claims in civil docket but that that also means that well in reality we know that not all of these departments are hearing all of these cases we know that that traffic tickets is probably the predominant usage of courts particularly the smaller courts in more rural jurisdictions so challenges to consider on the subject would be. The types of dockets the frequency of the docket and a court room versus other spaces often times these courts are not held in what we would traditionally think of his court rooms they're held in city halls and meeting spaces instead of dedicated courtrooms and and then security related equipment for which there is a grant program that that we can tell you a little bit about the security grant program that is administered through the administrative administrative office the court. Types of dockets as instead the majority of district courts have security provided by whatever entity is holding court that day and so when it comes to a civil darket it's less sure in terms of who should be providing that security because. At law enforcement officers aren't going to be involved necessarily in a civil case and so if a civil case is is being heard and there aren't officers present then obviously the local it's gonna be a decision between the police or the or the sheriff's office who's providing security and that's not always a clearly resolved question it has to be resolved locally. The frequency of courts and most courts in arkansas hold court some are most of the departments hold court up to about ten times in there in given month keep in mind one district judge may serve in a district that has multiple departments so that district judge may be. Three different courts in one week that one department may hold court as many times ten times in a month thirty percent or so of arkansas district courts whole court more than that in a department i'll that means more than ten times in that month the locations with low frequency so that they don't hold courtesy as often in a month court in those places is less formal it is more routine that usually there's a law enforcement familiarity with the folks who are we're going to be in those courts and that can lead to less adherence to sort of a standardized plan for security court rooms and other spaces is a certainly a a an issue of concern because. Whether that facility is a city or a county building that off also distates who provides security for that building. District courts and that share courtrooms with circuit courts and that does that does happen in some places where you will have a district court actually meeting in a circuit court courthouse in fact there are entire districts where the facility is not separate at all that the only departments of district court are in their county seat and they sit in what would what you would traditionally understand is a court room so in those places there's obviously more of a full time security presence and the type of space has an effect on security many departments of district court animal as I said meeting. City council rooms and so the physical setup of a courtroom provides other security advantages such as bullet proof benches and security entry and exit points. Security related equipment the most common types of security related equipment that we find in district courts are metal detectors whether it's a walk through metal detector or a one type of detector these are probably the most frequency air most frequently used devices. The court security grant process has provided a significant amount of metal detectors and district courts although one of the common things that you hear is that that we can get our hands on the metal detector but we've got to have the personnel to run it so having a middle detector in the hallway when you can walk around it or or or it's not constantly manned can be can be an issue. Other income and examples of security related equipment are security cameras and as I said keycard entry key fab and keypad entry so secured entry ways to the court facility itself and then the last subject would be local relationships local government relationships all district courts have different different histories. Because our court system is operated locally and the stork ways that things have been done in any given court is probably the best predictor of the way that things will be done in the future. Some local governments particularly once that have experienced some sort of security related incident in the past doing outstanding job of providing all the support necessary to ensure that the public file safe and district courts but other local governments particularly once that have not experienced such incidents and maybe not prioritised the the type of planning that is required to provide a good security every county and has a court security committee but the district courts aren't necessarily always included as part of the security plans and those are county plans and as I said district courts are organized sometimes in multi county districts and so they they as an entity one district court may cover two counties that have completely separate resources and there's no ability to pool those resources or to coordinate them between two counties. Um taken altogether the unintended consequences of creating those districts leaves leaves a lot of cities and counties in some amount of contention of the operations of their district court and security is one of the one of the items that that can be a point of contention one of the potential bright spots from the survey on a court security is that a vast majority of district judges reported a very good working relationships with their sheriffs and with their chiefs of police and sell the the feeling of a support and good will is is certainly there. With that i'll take any questions members are there any questions. Certain flowers you recognize for a question for mr borrow when you say those courts. There are multi county you're talking about state district court. Yes ma'am so even in state disrecord you don't involve. People from multi counties. Is that what you're saying for security purposes are for discussion of security arrangements. I'm saying that that yes those conversations I think happened the problem is there's no legal mechanism for them to share resources I was referring to the their court security committees that are established in each county and there are people who have to be on those committees that the sheriff the administrative judge for that circuit with their largely concerned with circuit court issues that security committees are. A district judge may be appointed to those committees and and in some places I think you have a lot of involvement for the planning of the district court but in other places that's not that's not the primary focus of a security committee and then when you add to it. State district courts you have multi county some places our multi county districts and so those two security committees are completely independent entities. Does that does that answer your question center yes that i'm trying to understand so the authority and and the creation of these are. Security commissions are cannot circuit. Court purposes. Is that by statue. Yes ma'am state statute yes ma'am it was passed in two thousand seven as a court security act and as I said there's their statutory saturally designated people who are on that committee units and it's set up to do that but that was at a time before state district courts ever came into being so wooden the supreme court. What shouldn't I work in on the security for these state disrecords in multiple. Multi county state disrecords I mean it. Seems like they would have the authority to to make rules regulations on security for those state district courts yes mayor as I said that the security is largely at a local matter I mean the only statute that mandates security for the district court is the one at the beginning of that presentation that mandates that the cheaper police be the one to keep the piece therein is the phrase that's used in the statue and so that's. It's really the provision of securities that necessarily a judicial function so that the supreme court wouldn't necessarily have. Have a. Are a role in in and deciding th. Okay if they. Representative heads in your recognized for a question. Thank you madame chair mr borrow do we have any data on the prevalence of the security issues in these district court state wide you know just in terms of of any sort of incidents that they've had to deal with and whether or not they had the tools available to them are there any gaps that were seeing based on actual real world events yes the we have a director of security and emergency preparedness that receives instant reports from from courts but we only receive what we receive so there I don't i'm not aware in terms of what the. I'm not wear in terms of what the rules are of four local and jurisdiction to to have to report that back but we do have data in terms of of the instance they're reported to us. Would you be able to provide that yes. Search our clark you recognize for a question. Thank you madame chair. How much of the security is used to keep cell phones out of courthouses. I don't I don't know center. The. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I can form an opinion on whether that would that would keep people secure if I may mount here i've got a. Question you brought up district courts but I think this will probably go to miss clark oh I was holding the question but to see if anybody else was gonna speak on any did. What what was the logic but behind going to full time district courts. So i'm judges when a minimum eighty was passed. Yet anticipated having a fully functional three tier branch of the judiciary that was uniform. One of the things that amendment eighty sight to do was professionalized in many ways are district courts. Before amendment eighty again mr borrow pointed out many of these replace courts sometimes they were referred to its mayor's courts you had part time folks some of them just selected by a mayor or a police chief. Who would be serving as the judges and. The idea was if we can professionalise these courts if we can begin to segregate responsibilities so that it's not necessarily the police chief who is not only issuing tickets but selecting the judge who's then also with police cliric is the one who's entering dispositions on tickets that it was a fair more equitable. System. So that was the original the original thought behind the min and eighty and then the second thing that it deared was because there was a shortage in circuit court resources and it's less expensive to have a district judge. Take on some of those responsibilities then it would be to add an additional socket judge that there was some car savings there. Going with in that what I was told way back I wasn't even legislature but is efficiency was was a big part of it all those things make sense have regarding statistics to show that we're being more efficient that as we have full time versus part time that were but here in a. With as many cases percentage wise as we were with part time. So when you look at the number of cases that are filed in the state district courts mean we can tell you that the volume of cases in state district courts is larger than the volume certainly in circuit courts are in either of the appellate courts tim very well may have more information about the number of district court cases but we do put out an annual report every year that were we provided that information back and i'll be happy to pull those last few years and get them to you you saw that you can see that case low data look at with the number i'm interested in is the case as we were hearing and. A part time court versus how many were hearing in a full time court. Are in that it's demostrably different. Thank you thank you madame chair members any other questions. Seeing no further questions just as a personal aside when I was on the bench in the district court err thankfully are security was pretty good at one point they took a ten each night far for somebody who had gotten mad at a previous ruling I made and they were coming after me and then I had somebody in front of me one day. Grab their glasses twister and then through so I had to do the famous duck to keep from getting hit so these issues do happen in what you may not realize in district court you're hearing domestic violence cases those are highly charged emotional cases that put not only the judges but court personnel sometimes in harm's way and so these are no longer just a traffic ticket somebody. Had your dealing sometimes you have. Sometimes you have a. Ten fifteen inmates sitting twelve in mate sitting in a in a jury box. And you may have just one guard on the inmates and so there's a lot of things that can happen in district court that we don't think about because they're taking on more and more so I particularly ask the group to bring to us some of the issues in regard to security are in what can be done I was lucky where I was they had a great security plan I had benches that were wallet proof that they assured me they had taken out shot everything they could add it and my main security plan was some happened drop below the birch until somebody could get to you up but all of these are things that every day are cancels in the witnesses and the other participants in the court you're your citizen who's coming to pay their ticket or whatever would be at risk for so I ask can I appreciate your addressing this issue next we're going to look at the current case management limitations you're recognized. They came out of chairman i'm tem whole tower from the director of the court information systems division for the administrative office of the courts i've been working with core automation for the aoc since two thousand and one when I was asked to to leave the the safe can't find the supreme court library in start working on on court automation for our state. I wanted to to briefly summarize that the progress that we've made which is notable for a nine unified judiciary if you go next door to mississippi or south to louisiana or down to to taxes they have nothing remotely resembling what we've been able to achieve here in arkansas so we should be very proud of what we have achieved but but our work is not done. Who we began the the effort to automate in two thousand and one quite honestly we didn't know what kind of success we were going to be able to have because of a nine unified judiciary participation in our case management efforts has been entirely voluntary at the court level and we've had great successor being able to automate all of the circuit courts the appellate courts and approximately forty one of the district court departments with the case management system that we've deployed. The system in place. Is it's essentially the same system that was used and is still being used in the state of missouri to our north. When we deploy the system one of the things that we did differently then then other states was to use the internet to provide case management systems to our courts. In every other jurisdiction that has done a state wide case management system the first thing that they did was to build a judicial network for tens of millions of dollars in and when we started in two thousand and one we had a six million dollars appropriation we only had access to four and a half million dollars to get started and and there was no way that we could begin at that point so we had to think outside the box and do something that no one had ever done before in that was to deliver a court management system over the internet. In two thousand and twelve we began the effort to bring electronic filing to our courts and II think it was middle of last year we met our goal of having electronic filing in every county it's electronic following it has been being used by the appellate courts all of the circuit courts and several of the district courts although we slow down our are deployment efforts because of the need to replace or are aging case management system. In twenty twenty the the vendor which is a a successor owner of the company that we initially contracted with. Decided that they weren't going to do any more updates to the system we had worked with them for several several years to try to find a way to modernize this aging case management system and and they simply couldn't provide us a path forward. We had several discussions with potential vendors and and uh one of the the the tales that marty likes the sale is we had a visit with with one of the leading vendors for case management. And marty asked for a ballpark figure to to replace our case management system and they came back with the the price of a ballpark by comparison uh the the state of south carolina contracted for one hundred million dollars for a state wide implementation of that system and they they haven't finished they started in twenty nineteen and their mired and litigation right now with with this leaning vendor. We explored several possibilities before we started our our building effort i'll talk in in detail about those in in just a moment. But there was there was really no no question but are only way forward to a modern court management solution that we hope will be used by all of the courts in the state was to build it ourselves. In twenty twenty three we were very fortunate to be able to receive twenty million dollars and funding of arable fines arm to begin that build effort in earnest in all i'll provide you some details about what we've accomplished so far with that. From two thousand and one to to today most of the finding for court automation has come from federal fines are performance. Federal grant fines we've been are very fortunate to receive federal motor carrier safety administration fines because of their interest and in receiving a disposition information for commercial drivers. We we began or effort with administration of justice fines and a small appropriation from the the federal highway safety fines. Other than that we we haven't received any general revenue in in over twenty years of court automation it's been federal finding and then the the fines are the the installment fees that that are are are poorest defendants pay as as funded the court automation results are we've made so far. Although we have most of the the. The the courts that are that are not district courts in the case management system. We have a I think a great advantage in that we've we've been able to leverage the the benefits of some modern technologies even with an aging legacy system a few years ago we completed a a migration of the data to the oracle clown in although we just got through talking about court security that the physical security aspects just as important is the internet security of the data that were responsible for by taking these measures at the state level were able to better secure the court information which includes some of them that the most confidential information that our courts are are responsible for. Although the disrecords that we have using the case management system are using the accounting functionality most of the circuit courts simply would not use the accounting functionality because the circuit clerks don't have any responsibility for collecting fines and costs although they're using it to to record the the filing of documents in cases. That they they didn't have any interest and taking on that that ownership of tracking the payments of fines and costs one of the the flaws of our legacy system was that there was no way to appropriately account for the sheriff or the police department or the prosecutor collecting fines on behalf of the courts in transferring those fines for for proper dispersement so was it was an accounting limitation of the legacy system I think that prevented us from doing much better and in that regard cam can I stop you for just a second how are the are you. House the court accounting for or are you accounting for any of the fines and fees that are being collected say like in the circuit court because they're not they are not responsible who is and who gets said information is that the effort to you'll get a report for so in in all of the district courts that are using the the context case management system they are using the accounting functionality so we have information on every penny of fines and costs and fees that are assessed and collected in the information about the installments on the payments that are there being made in circuit court in washington county and palaski county because those clerks are the design needed collectors we do have that detail information about the the fines and costs assessed and collected um and we we can report that information out from the system. But other other than those two circuit courts other than than what's reported to the affair I we don't have any direct information about those. Juvenile at sir stubborn field window nasty in it did even our courts also use the same automation. What are we doing with juvenile courts the juvenile courts are using text for the docketing of the the filings in the cases but many of the juvenile probation officers are separately tracking the the the interaction that they're having with with the the juveniles in those cases we did do some some development specific to drug court arm so we we added on some functionality for juvenile drug court we added on some functionality for for specialty courts and we also added on the assessments that are being conducted for many of our juvenile so that is also being collected into the the keep the core case management system in the legacy system center flowers you recognize for a question thank you madam to so you mention washington county disrecords and another circuit court circuit quotes ahead the. Clerks charge with collection find. Is that my local rule how is it that those two counties. I able to do that so senator flowers there's a state statute that authorizes core courts to determine individually county by county who the designated collector will be for circuit court and in washington county and plastic county they have designated their clerks offices as opposed to a sheriff's office so. Yes it's a local ordinance that is passed in every county and there is a state saturday that authorizes that pract. I'm just wondering why wouldn't more counties consider there. A better way to tell them and it if I may have i've had i've been so blessed to go into so many courts around our state over the the last twenty plus years and one of I think one of the most notable things is that for many of our circuit courts they simply wouldn't be set up to manage the defendants coming in to pay their their fines and cost the physical locations of many of the circuit clerks offices that the staffing in many of the circuit clerks officers it is simply not as suitable as sending someone over to the sheriff's office to to make those those payments I believe in in my experience that that's one of the biggest limitations that are circuit clerks have face one of the other issues with the clark being the collector is the hours that they're actually open whereas if it's a law enforcement agency many of those facilities have extended hours which make it easier for someone to walk in and actually make the payment. And we also have online payment available in many locations as well which is helped with that too. Well it a defendant person had also court can't merely and payments. Can i. The. It makes it much more difficult to receipt in that properly when they do that but I mean if I were asked. Bah a designated collector whether they should turn down money at my answer would be no you figure out a way to accept the payment. And receipted in. The the end they do in in in some cases the the circuit clark will actually receive and payments by mile and they'll have to pass them over to the designated collector thank you manager. Go ahead time we cannot chase but that's what we like to do so that's my pleasure i've been chasing rabbits for a while here and I enjoy it. So as to the the the limitations one of the the biggest limitations that we have is as has been expressed and in testimony before this committee and and other committees for many years is that because we have a tip state wide case management system that isn't in use in every court of the state. The administrative officer the courts is simply unable to provide the general assembly or the executive branch case level data on every case in our courts in our state we have this this gap in in information and and we have no waiter to fill that gap unless we ever state wide case management system it's it's even worse because of the the local decision enough what case management system to use where to physically house that those servers and in many cases and in rural areas of arkansas that the courts server may be sitting under somebody's desk there's there's often not much security either physical or information technology based around these these systems that have been deployed around the state. The responsibility for managing these systems varies dramatically from court to court and from vendor to vendor although we have a couple of vendors in the state that that have had great success with her or disrecords there beginning to go through similar processes that are owned vendor went through where they're being gobbled up by by other companies and and you may have may have heard in the news recently about one of the the local case management vendors and that was bite by a big thender and and they're trying to decide honestly what to do with that case management system. For us that the biggest problem we face is that the the case management system is not being updated by the vendor and we we have to do something to modernize it this is in in it's not just because we need a system that's easier to use that's also we have to ever system that is secure. We we've already talked about the physical security and and i've stressed the importance of of it security in our courts i've i've talked to so many of my peers around the country who are daily facing a tax in challenges in the internet arena. Umm one of the most recent was fault in county courts in there's speculation of foreign attacks because of an important case going on there and the the state of pennsylvania was recently under attack by a foreign foreign actor. The the individual installations of these courts simply are not capable of bringing to bear the the technology that's available to better secure accord data so are our court data sitting in in all of these courts around the state is seriously at risk of of of corruption destruction in an uhm potentially other other harms release to the public and because they don't have the resources to properly secure the data. Only when we looked at the options for modernization the first option that we looked at was possibly modifying the system that we already had in and marty was was gracious enough to give us some time to look into that possibility we we did some some initial analysis about the possibility of building a new interface onto the existing system we thought that might be a a faster solution. But the the legacy baggage. Of the architecture that that we have was so great that that the effort would have probably been fruitless had we tried that approach. The other approach was to go out and buy a new system and and we've talked about the unwillingness to to ask for the the cost of the ballpark. Uh to to buy a system and that leaves only one other option or two options one is do nothing which we can't do that to our state and the other option is to build the system. And twenty twenty two we started with we were able to gather a small team. Of ac employees to begin exploring the possibility of building a modern cloud based system and and we had some success with with that development not not we we didn't get very far we only had a few folks working on it but we learned a lot of lessons a lot of important lessons. It set us into the possession though that when the arpa funds were made available we were ready to go. In instead of taking the the the the approach that most other jurisdictions have done in the past when having an opportunity like this we didn't issue a request for proposals and award a twenty million dollar contract to a vendor like the the one in in carolina's that that. Couldn't deliver anyway instead we took the approach of working with three vendors to supplement our staff to begin the building progress. The the three vendors one slawlem is a reputable development vendor and they've they've done a a lot of work in in the government are you know. A tech systems primarily supplements staff and then a local company called mainstream technologies has a lot of experience with other state agencies so instead of doing one massive contract to be this appointed at the end we've broke it down into smaller chunks of work so each quarter we issue the contract for the work that the vendors are going to be doing in those quarters so we we broke the work down to a smaller chunk we broke the contracts down to smaller manageable contracts so that we could better hold the the vendors accountable for the work that they're doing and we've executed those contracts over the the course of the air. The. So. Although we made a lot of progress in deploying context to our courts the the screen shows the map of the district court implementations for context. We reached that point a few years ago where where it just didn't make sense are our focus needed to be on building a new system to to bring to the courts that that that would want it. But one of the other other advantages of state wide case management was the ability to to exchange information so for the courts participating with context they don't have to mail this positions to acic those dispositions are automatically transmitted. They are able to receive electronic citations from the state police and electronically transmit dispositions back to to state police we've also worked with a very closely with legislative audit so that before like audit goes into a court that's using our legacy case management system they extract the data and it improves the efficiency of their their audit process. So these are some of the reasons why it's it's very important to continue the work towards building a state wide case management system. I think they're there some very philosophical reasons to do that as well. It's important to have current complete timely court information otherwise the the legislative body doesn't have the information that you need to rely on to to be able to to look at your policy the decisions in it it's painful for us to to sit here as representatives of the judicial branch and not being able to to provide you that information but he state wide case management system will give us that data so that you will be able to assess this policy decision so you may. There's a notable increase in public safety because of state wide case management information. At this point most of our disrecords who handle serious criminal matters class a misdemeanors require that defendants be fingerprinted but we know from experience that doesn't always happen the the fingerprint doesn't take in doesn't get taken the the arrest isn't reported to acic that the information simply isn't there and we don't know crew these people are where they are if they're if their teachers or or nurses are working in in extended care facilities would we simple you don't know there's a gap in our knowledge so it's a it's it's a real public safety issue. It's also a and in officer safety issue every time a law enforcement officer anywhere in the state pull someone over. They they try to find out as much as they can about the the person that they're about to come and contact with. For those course that are using our staywide case management system they have more information than with all the courts that that we don't have that information so every time and officer pulls post someone over there's a risk that they're dealing with someone that they simply do not know is potentially horrible to to to this so those are those are some other reasons that it's important for state wide case management transparency accountability to to be able to hold ourselves accountable in and to be transparent to the public about how the courts are operating is is very important that was one of the the reasons that drove me to the aoc in the beginning as a as a librarian in the supreme court for a decade day after they are received phone call after a phone call with people trying to find out information about a particular case and and often the best I could do is say you'll have to call seventy five clerks to find out it was it was not a very comfortable position to be in but today we we have a much better body of information to to rely up on. What does that is it improves the public trust in confidence in the in the judicial branch the the availability of this design formation allows people the sea how the course were operating and see what's going on in in the impact is that that people will believe in our system. So if I may i'll i'll talk a little bit more in detail about the the building process that we're going through. Do I i'd mention the the effort in twenty twenty two in and the the progress that we made in the lessons that we learned. One of the biggest challenges though has been the transformation of our own organization. For twenty years the aoc has been responsible for supporting vendor provided software and in that it's a a different job than being a software development shop going out and in building software from the ground up so much of the transition that we've made over the last couple of years has been too try to become an agile streamlined software development organization in and we've had a lot of success in that regard largely because of of the funding that we received just over a year ago. So building our own system is going to prevent us from being subject to the whims of a vendor as as we've already experienced. We're building the system in a native cloud based environment so one of the biggest benefits is that we didn't have to go out and buy a millions of dollars worth of hardware that is going to to age rather quickly instead we're relying on cloud based systems where they're responsible for providing the the hardware and and we're responsible for maintaining the accuracy of the data in the systems we're using agile development methodologies II don't know if many of your familiar with with agile methodologies I was also trained as a project manager and and we spent a lot of time I gathering requirements and building schedules and for me it's been a transformation into the the modern development processes where we look at agility we focus on delivering value to the customers as quickly as we can with we've demonstrated our ability to do this recently in our first release of our our public search portal called search or courts. In building a system. That's that's constructed in the cloud it also gives us a great advantage that we've also never had before in as to collaborate with other jurisdictions we've had conversations with the state of georgia there are non unified system their case management is all over the place and they also can't answer questions to their general assembly about how their courts are operating so we're we're looking at at opportunities to collaborate with them to speed our own development this morning I had an email from my my counterpart in the state of taxes there are supreme court and court of appeals needs a new system and they're asking about the progress that we're making on on our build effort so there's another opportunity possibly to collaborate across jurisdictions this is something again that we've just never we've never had the opportunity to do before but how much sense does it make for many states to come together to try to build a solution and for all of us to be able to take advantage of of the work that each other is doing. One of the the proud moments that i'd like to share last year in november. We the the alc and was heavily involved in the first code for justice summit. It was held in st louis museum. There were thirty four states nearly hundred participants and it was the the programmers in the analysts from around the country and in our courts that came together to share how they're doing the work it's the start of a billing a community to be able to collaborate and for all of the courts around the country to be able to benefit from the work that that we're doing. And i'm i'm happy to announce that in september arkansas going to be the host for the second code for just a summit so and we'll have a bunch of programmers here from all over the state maybe we'll convince them to stay and help us continue building this this our new court management system. As to the progress that we've made with. Focused alight on building the the the team within the aoc and and building our skills we could have we could have used the the fines the the arpa funds to probably buy something off the shelf. But then we wouldn't have been able to to do anything with that we wouldn't have been able to to own it on to to make it specific to arkansas and and to make it the the best that it can be. Instead we focused on beginning the process of building the system we. In cloud based development instead of installing a bunch of servers we use code to build a pipeline so where is its called infrastructure as code so that the folks in in our team that used to be responsible for plugging in servers and formatting drives and stalling operating systems now they are trained to write code to tell a was create a new server in this is the operating system and this is what the server is going to do so in seconds they're able to do things that that it used to take them many weeks to do but it's it's a reskilling effort on on our part. The. Now. Our our initial focus in development is on traffic in criminal cases for limited jurisdiction courts are first targeted courts are those courts that are not using the context case management system we want to go in and pill it in those courts and continue enhancing the the system based on on the experiences of those courts and as we continue to build while we'll work on building the the functionality that's needed to make this system a true state wide court case management system that all of our courts are going to want to use. Where doing a lot of work right now focused on the accounting complexities and as as christian um so ably discussed this is one of the biggest challenges in building a case management system we did with our legacy system dead millions of dollars of customisation to accommodate the specific accounting needs for for arkansas courts so similarly we're having to build a very complicated system to handle the complicated assessment and dispersement process but our teams are arm in it now we're working very closely with the legal division to be able to to to make sure that we do it correctly and unlike our efforts in two thousand and one legislative audit has been amazing they're they're participating with us in in meetings and and discussions to help ensure that we build a system that will easily be audit audited and and will help me their requirements to be able able to detect and avoid wrongdoing bite by participants in the system. In april we're expecting to have a platform available that will be used by focus group court users to to start getting hands on in the new system so if we've got most of the core functionality to manage a traffic and criminal case built where building the environment so that that court users can can start getting in and in using it for for practice purposes and in top understand are an insurer that we're doing it correctly. In the with made a lot of progress as a mentioned in upskilling the aoc staff to be able to to be a software development share. We expect the arpo fines arm to to be depleted probably in november and we're targeting our first minimum release for district court in the summertime probably july in august is is what we're looking at right now so we're we're hoping that that will be able to get some initial pilot courts to to come in and start using the system to actually manage cases in in july or august and then from from from there as funny permits as grant funding is available is staffing is available or continue building and enhancing the system. This slide is just a burned down of the arpa fines so that you can see the the rate at which the the funds have been spent since they were awarded. And then my final sliders are high love or roadmap though the way we're going about building this new system we're hoping to to start some focus on specially courts very soon there there are some special funding sources available that will be looking for and that will help us target our our development efforts as well the thank you all for listening to me talk about something that I care so much about them very passionate about and I believe that they were doing the right thing thank you tim thank you for your presentation and it I think take service hard to the forefront of case management and but II think there are a couple of questions or at least some that have been texted into me to escale about in this regard when are you anticipating that it's going to be complete I mean I know it's never a complete you always going to have to be updating but when you can say okay courts. It's really that is probably the most impossible question to to answer and if I were a vendor I would have said for a hundred million dollars i'll have your system installed in three years and what we see on that happens with all the vendors as they they make stuff up and and people that the state spend a lot of money and they don't get what they're expecting what I will promise you is that we are going to work as fast as we can as hard as we can to build the best thing that we can to get it into the hands of our courts the summer my team is very confident there will be to the point where a district court can log in to the system to be able to manage on the core functionality for their cases and and from that point on where we're going to go as quick as we can are with a funds that we have and the resources that we have available to progress ok let's say in a perfect world it's ready to roll out tomorrow or next week or at the end of the month. Are all court is going to be required to be on it is that something that the supreme court and I know you're not speaking we've already heard that we've already heard that I can't be out that you don't speak to the supreme court my question is and I think the question of some committing members who have texted into me. Can that be done by order of the court are you going to need legislation saying guess what all courts are going to participate on this and you're not going to be allowed to go to some kind of outside vinder so marty if you could answer maybe. This. And I know you don't speak for the correct speed being achieved in town for yes I think all of us are on the same page I think everyone on the supreme court is on the same page they white a state wide case management system so once the system is completely ready they wall. I'm assuming require everyone to be on the new system. Where they are the superintending authority of of all the courts that the question is if we need to do legislation somebody needs to let us know senator love you recognize for a question okay well that's scanned the question that I can hit and in texas is that do you are won't let you slash temanda our courts beyond this or are you saying that there can be handled through the supreme court it could be handled through the supreme court again where so focus right now on building a product that everyone will want to use the beautiful thing about the system as it's really intuitive if you've had a chance to go on the the new court connect platform you'll see how much faster it is how much more into it if it is like we are not building the big challenge for context and for the district courts that aren't on context is it's difficult to use and so no one wanted to use it so we're building the next generation we have actually hired people that weren't for virtual justice so I mean we're we're we've put together a team a product I think everyone's going to want to use okay now killed here in the red and slads a hundred million dollars kept being thrown around and north carolina but thus far how much have we spent on this system. Close to. Where are with the arpa fines the last report ahead on march first and we had four four million dollars left. In our performing and and with then so as my staff has been getting better in more skilled we've been are trimming down the vendor staff so that the vendor presents that that's importances is getting smaller their footprints getting smaller and aoc folks are taking over responsibility as we've we've gotten those skills so we're still on track for a projection for this four billion dollars to last us through november and to get us for through our first release into some district courts another thing i'd like to point out that was said earlier as we've had no general revenue for this and we've actually secured another great time allowance to hire three more programmers by the end of the month we're also seeking some additional federal dollars that I think will give us three more programmers in october so again we're looking at outside federal government grants that can supplement or building like we. The projects never going to get finished I don't think I mean the the goal is to always improve and so that's what the goal is alright appreciated thank you thank you manager clicker tucker you're recognized thank you very sure. I was just gonna say I don't think we could pass a bill to require the courts to do it right because of separation of powers issues so. Maybe i'm wrong about that and and if if that would be helpful I know everyone here would want to be helpful in that regard but I think it's going to be up to the supreme court a matter white at the end of the day. What you did is that it is important though is you pass legislation authorizing the administrative office of courts to do this this work and that was there was the key thing that that we needed to begin in two thousand and one what's really remarkable and again this is like inside our baseball court community no one. Outside of the real world is following the but we really are the envy of the the country right now there are multiple states that are calling us on a daily basis I was actually getting on an elevator in new york city and II my goal literally is to be widely at known and never wear name tax and I had to have my name tag on to get on a bus and I was getting on this elevator in this giant man said your marty sullivan i've heard about what you're doing in arkansas and I want to pick your brain I had no idea who it was and II told him I quickly took my name tag off and I said who are you and he said well i'm the chief justice of georgia. I'm a pretty big guy this guy made me look tiny he played he was a line backer for georgia tag and again georgia every county has their own case management system you look at our are court connect that everyone uses that's free you know there are alabama charges per page there's the vast majority of of the states they don't have this you can't get access to these court record so you know. We've I like to say this to even haird a lot of areas of improvement and we're really doing a fantastic job with the limited resources that we have and I think all of us at this table were multi generation or cansons from all over the state we've got deep roots here we care about the administration of justice and i'm extremely proud to go to work every day and i'm really excited I do believe by the end of the summer will have multiple district courts on and then that will be though the tipping point I think multiple people will want to be on because this is court data that everybody should have. Senator clark who recognized for a question thank you madame chair the is anyone doing better testing it so we have not entered up a beta testing routine yet as a mentioned where where we are as far as building the. The the unless they hardware platform but they're they're writing the code to build the the hardware infrastructure in the cloud to be able to allow external users to start coming in and we we are expecting that to be ready in april and at that point will have will be written out to to folks to come in and start hammering on the system in in further reassuring that that we're going down the right path making sure that that the system is until. The watch the ongoing plan for support. My team will be responsible for continuing to support currently we have um it's approximately twenty folks in our application support team that are responsible for a supporting all of that you filing users the case management users that the public a website users and in attorneys around the state and we're building their skills in the new system there they're involved in the development process so that they will be ready from a a user support system to take on that role and then some of our folks that that we continue in this in this building team will be handling the the bug fixes in the enhancement requests as they come into our teams so the. You know there's an ongoing cost with the with the system. And the. You know a lot of software. Producer suppliers what to use supporters are cash called but nevertheless there is a cost ongoing support or how is that going to be fine so II think that the good news is we have already notified our legacy system vendor that we are ceasing our support agreement with them the the last the last obligation will be from july two october we've been paying. Very nearly a million dollars for a year to to the legacy system for for it for support and so we've got one quarter of in july july august september and then we're cutting it off so so we're going to have um nearly a million dollars savings from turning off the support from the legacy system i'm i'm proud of what you're doing but don't be coming back asking for more money than me and all the center we will be coming back asking for a from a promise. Thank you matter. Represent I mean serious debit field you recognized item out I just have one one suggestion and want a question to christopher to all I would I would be very careful. And and look very closely these outside injures in the history of these vendors. Because i'll be here long enough to see how they they put in this software doesn't work we never get a penny pack that we're happening for for fourteen years. Also christian I wouldn't ask you. They're amendment eighty really accomplished what it was set out to do is in regard to the uniformity. The. It was bringing to the assessment distribution of funds to restart world. We're not there yet they're still a great deal of work. Somebody. There we go so we're not there yet we have made great starts with implementing the mimid eighty but we're not there yet we still don't have a unified port system we still know that there's inequitable access to the court system throughout the state and we also know that the funding issues have not been fully resolved so we're not there yet when we get there well you all largely determine when that will happen many of the issues that you all identify in. Well nineteen ninety five and then again in two thousand and seven still exist and that's the beauty of having studies like you all are doing right now on the funding of the of the court system and doing the one that was done in twenty twenty one regarding a study about court cost ultimately you all decide the policy of the state and you'll decide how to fund the judiciary and how to implement a lot of this and we'd like to have a seat at the table but ultimately you all decide when that happens so so the findings of this committee. Will help us along way along those lines okay thank you. Represent collins are you wanting back in the queue. You're good I see no further questions. The situation last chance to take a partshot of the administrative office supports while we have on this captive audience I think you are so much for putting on this presentation well wait a minute center flowers there you go soon flares you recognize they have all the state district courts of informed. So senator flowers are now there since you have served on decrease previously you will be very proud to know that as january one twenty twenty five all of the state district courts will be formed and there will be no further local district courts the elections for those new judgeships are actually going to be held tomorrow so yes decrease the the first part of decrap's work will be complete now decrable just need to begin looking at the reorganization and whether that needs to continue to happen and. The. There does the that committee make that. So decrap is task with continuing to make recommendations to the legislature about the placement of new courts the reorganization of existing courts and that's part of the process that the committee has not had an opportunity to actually look at so far they've been so focused on getting the actual courts forumed that now will start looking at the rest the rest of the directives from the legislature. So so they can decrease can actually come back in rearrange these state district court is that what you're saying yes ma'am they can make recommendations to the legislature return then further refund and improve add new courts reorganized courts. You know one of the things that has been talked about barely regularly is. Whether or not some of the. Courts that exist now actually have the resources that are needed to continue to operate as a state just record so that's one of the things that I would anticipate decrab looking out and looking at probably when they begin their next meetings. Which is when. So they're required to meet in the fall before each general session but I think the based on conversations i've had with other members that probably this summer they will begin to start the process of meeting. Thank you thank you matter to. Seeing nothing further once again thank you so much for being here I think it was helpful to bring these issues before the committee in this task force I see back here in the back with other municipal league in the county association you guys have anything you want to add this morning. You're good and audit i'm now they're watching they were here earlier today anyway so thank you you're free to go members are next meeting is going to be the last may first part of june somewhere along that time i'm anticipating we'll have the report from audit remember we've asked audit to look at the different agreements and things that are happening in district courts between up cities and counties and that type of things from anticipating we will have that so watch for a time either like may first part of june if you want to receive one of these their up here it's the district court resource assessment packet not kind of set out of lot of stuff so we have that app here if you want it and there also online so if you just don't want the paper go online and read it and the chairs are open for any other topics of discussion that you would like to hear for our next meeting because our timeline is after that next meeting then we're going to be looking at august to discuss and boat regarding final recommendations september we're going to. Once again maybe have to look at those for a vote september will be drafting the final report impossible legislation will have two meetings in september then we have to submit our report to the governor of the speaker of the house the pro tim the arkansas supreme court the end of september first of october silly got a lot of work to do a centre flowers who recognized. Well we hear from the supreme court at all. That's what we are hearing from cannot today we won't hear from the justices but that's these were the topics in regard to district court that I oc was addressing so we won't hear from the justices themselves. Or you know. I recall in the past the chief justice list I think it was. The one now just discount chief just discount. And I even think hannah would meet with legislators. We can certainly make that inquiry and i'll be happy my common. Again I think after tomorrow will load hopefully who the chief justices if there's not a runoff then it'll be november before we know who the chief justice is I know that our current chief justice are had some very specific ideals as to the installment fee that we've had a lot of discussion on and I think we're kind of in a holding pattern to find out with the next chief justice but I will certainly make those inquiries and see I think it would be good to hear from from them if they are so willing to and I will make that inquiry at least an invitation to we will I always some vitamin to the house judiciary at the very first of the meeting and I think there's double filled head on this year back and back when the general session we always have always invite him to come in there very gracious and chief camp is always come so i'm anticipating the new chief will do that but that would become january so we need if you want to hear from before they are not seeing if we can make that happen anything else members. Seeing no further business thank you for your time we are turned.