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Thursday, September 29, 2005

Ind. Courts - More on "Plan to link 400 courts hits a wall, again"

The ILB has received a copy of an announcement that recently went to the clerks of the various Indiana counties:

At the regional meetings of the Clerks’ Association last week, Mary DePrez, the director of the Indiana Supreme Court’s Judicial Technology and Automation Committee, did not make a report on the statewide case management system. This was because, after completing within the last few weeks a very detailed and systematic analysis of all of the re-quirements and features that need to be included in the statewide CMS, we were engaged in discussions as to the best way to proceed given the amount of work that still needs to be done and the time and money that it will take to do it. These discussions have continued since last week and we are now able to make the following announcement:

Computer Associates, International, Inc. (CA) and the Indiana Supreme Court's Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC) have been working to build a state-wide computerized case management application for Indiana courts. During the past several months, CA committed additional CA resources and assigned project oversight to a senior-level executive to work with JTAC to conduct a detailed review of the State's requirements. Upon completion of this review, CA and JTAC concluded that it is not in the best interests of either party for CA to support the additional requirements resulting from this review. A factor in this decision was CA’s determination, subsequent to the initial award of this contract, that application development services would no longer be one of its core businesses and as such CA is no longer pursuing business in this area. As a result, CA and JTAC have agreed to a termination of their contract on financial terms mu-tually acceptable to both parties, including a refund of fees associated with this applica-tion development project.

In 2002, after an extensive competitive procurement process, JTAC selected CA to develop and provide to Indiana courts and court clerks a single statewide computer system to help them manage their caseloads and share court information with law enforcement and others who need and use court information. Both JTAC and CA worked very hard on the project but concluded that it was in their mutual interest that JTAC should find an alternate partner. The Supreme Court remains committed to providing Indiana courts with the technology they need and will announce its plans for moving forward on this project within the next 30 days.

CA and JTAC believe that the mutually acceptable terms they have reached will facilitate the continuation of this important project. Two other related and extremely significant and far-reaching projects -- a new partnership between JTAC and the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles to transfer data electronically and development of the Marion County module of the case management system (called JUSTIS.NET) – are not affected by this decision and are continuing without interruption.

A check of the JTAC website this morning, however, shows that it does not reflect the recent decisionmaking, but instead reports:
JTAC Newsletter Top Story: Case Management System Project Back in High Gear

The Indiana Supreme Court's Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC) remains committed to providing all Indiana courts with a 21st century Case Management System that connects all courts throughout Indiana's 92 counties with state agencies and provides the public with vital information on a wide variety of matters.

Work began on the CMS project several years ago, and it has been some time since you received an update on its progress. There was an interruption in this project while we reviewed the work completed to date to ensure the system met our collective requirements. As a result of this review, we determined that the CMS application needs further customization than originally planned. For example, the Clerk's financial solution will now be a custom-built component of the system. Now that we have determined how best to move forward, work on the project is once again underway.

However, that was the status six months ago. The project has now halted again, for reevaluation, as reported in this ILB entry from 9/26/05.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 29, 2005 08:19 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts