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Oklahoma Online Court Record Syatem Vexed
Oklahoma’s online court records system has 80 employees in its information technology department and nearly $30 million in the bank — and one county running on its new system.
State courts officials say the Unified Case Management System is one year past its original due date, but they have repeatedly changed the estimated project deadline over the past few years.
Oklahomans have been paying for the new system with a $15 increase in all court filing fees since 2007. The goal is to have a single, online, publicly accessible statewide court record system — residents will eventually be able to track any court case in Oklahoma and read its corresponding documents online.
Noble County went online in December as the first county using the new system. Noble received an “upgrade” to its system last week, and Logan County will begin implementation in mid- May, said Mike Evans, administrative director of the courts.
Originally, at least four counties were supposed to be using Oklahoma’s new system by the end of 2012. That quickly changed to a single pilot program online by the end of 2013. In 2011, Evans told state lawmakers that all 77 counties would be finished converting to the new system by fall 2015.
Now, Evans said, only Logan, Kay and Tulsa counties will begin implementation by the end of 2014.
When 2015 begins, Oklahoma will have 73 counties operating on the two older court records systems — the state-run Oklahoma Court Information System and ODCR, the system run by private contractor Kell- Pro.
Records show that since 2009, the judicial branch has spent $82.6 million on payroll and expenses through the Oklahoma Court Information System Revolving Fund. Evans said those totals include general operating expenses for the current court records system as well as the expense of building the new system. He did not provide detailed records showing what money was spent on running the current system versus building the new case management system.
He estimated that out of the $9.56 million the courts have spent on payroll and expenses from that fund so far in 2014, about 28 percent was directly related to the project budget, versus 72 percent for maintaining the current system.
State budget records show the project has 78 employees under the category of “programmer analyst” who were paid a collective $4.8 million in fiscal year 2013. Though the 78 individual employees have different titles and salary levels, that’s an average of $61,538 per year in salary for each.
By comparison, the state’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services has about 150 programmers in its information services division who handle hundreds of projects annually for almost all state agencies, spokesman John Estus said.
Additionally, the court system has a network administrator/ director of management and information systems who is paid $120,750 annually and an executive secretary paid $43,575, records show. Evans said he couldn’t determine how much time each of those employees spends on the current system versus the new one.
“I get when people say, ‘Mike, you’ve got a lot of people working for you.’ We undoubtedly have a lot of people here as a result of our project,” Evans said. “If we had all 77 counties on our system today, I don’t even know if 80 would be enough to do it.”
A big reason for the project falling behind is its sheer size and scope, Evans said.
“There are a lot of complications with a project like this,” he said. “We’ve had some issues with our vendor, but we’re generally doing much better with keeping our timelines and schedules this year.”
State court officials awarded the contract for building the new system to vendor American Cadastre LLC in 2010.
Although the state has paid nearly $5 million so far to American Cadastre to build the new system, ODCR operator KellPro continues to profit beyond its annual contract for the remaining 63 counties it operates.
Annually, the state pays more than $1.1 million to KellPro to manage the computerized records in the counties that use ODCR instead of the state system. State finance records show KellPro has been paid an additional $1 million through the court information system revolving fund.
Evans estimated about half those payments were for “data conversion” work related to building the new system.
For several years, Kell- Pro has also been allowed to charge Oklahoma Bar Association members for full access to online records that the general public currently cannot get in most of the counties served by KellPro. Open-records advocates have said Kell- Pro is allowed to charge a select group of individuals for access to public records on top of what it is already paid by the state to maintain the record databases.
Records show that the $25 fee paid by the general public for all court filings has the court system’s revolving fund currently sitting with $29.2 million in its coffers.
“We’ve got more money in the bank right now than we may need,” Evans said. But the fund also has $15 million to $20 million per year in expenses, he said, and the fee increases were intended to fund this specific project.
State lawmakers may be eyeing those funds during a state budget shortfall, he said, but it’s important to ensure the project is completed properly before any of that money is allocated elsewhere by the Legislature, he said.
“Let’s finish the project,” he said. “Then, when we get to that point, let’s sit down and talk about what makes the best sense for any leftover funds.”
State Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger confirmed that this fund and project have been a recurring topic in state budget negotiations this year.
“We’re crafting a very tight budget and are extremely curious to know what the third branch of government has done with the considerable resources devoted to this project,” Doerflinger said. “It’s worth a closer look, and we’ll be asking for one.”
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