SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - California's northern counties show profound skepticism toward a new IT system being pushed by central court administrators, in survey answers recently obtained by Courthouse News. The northern trial courts describe the new system as slow, complex and not worth the money. They complain the project has been poorly managed while their current systems are faster, simpler, and work just fine.
"We're very satisfied with our current system and are not eager to migrate to a slower, more complex, and much more expensive system," said the answer from Yuba County.
The answers come from a survey of California's trial courts conducted by state auditor Elaine Howle who conducted an audit of the flagship project pushed by the judiciary's central administrators based in San Francisco. That audit, published earlier this year, blistered the expenses and the management of the project by the Administrative Office of the Courts.
But the underlying survey answers were released only recently in a response to a request by Courthouse News. A central concern in the answers from 28 trial courts in northern California is the cost of the IT project, called the Court Case Management System. It is now projected to cost at least $1.9 billion, at a time when the state and individual courts are facing severe cuts to their operations.
Central Valley courts blasted the system in an article on this page last week, with the northern counties voicing similar rejection here, in the second of a series of articles on the views of California's courts regarding the central administrators and their handling of the IT project.
"In concept, the court does not object to a statewide case management system such as CCMS," said the answer from Amador County's trial court. "However, the court believes the CCMS project has been poorly managed, the scope of the project not well-defined and the costs of the project (both actual and projected) excessive."
The Gold Country court adds, "In 2002 the AOC was directed to develop a case management system for statewide implementation as soon as possible. It is now almost nine years later and the product is not yet completed. Hundreds of millions of dollars that could have otherwise been used for court operations have been spent on a system that may never be deployed due to a lack of funding."
Siskiyou County observes that the AOC had been funding the project with money set aside to keep courtrooms open, particularly from the Trial Court Trust Fund. "Our concern about CCMS has continued as we realize that CCMS, which has already taken a significant portion of scarce TCTF may require an ever increasing portion of TCTF at a time when all courts are downsizing and some are experiencing layoffs."
Of the 28 northern courts, 20 say their current IT systems work just fine and should serve them "for the foreseeable future."
Yolo County Superior Court responds, "Our current case management system satisfies our business needs and is very cost effective." They add, "There are little to no benefits to our trial court in converting from our inexpensive case management system to a statewide CCMS."