TRUMBULL COUNTY Courts to upgrade computer system
The commissioners approved issuing $1.2 million in bonds for the project, which includes new system coming this fall.
WARREN -- Trumbull County will overhaul its court computer system this year, providing better public Internet access, improved information sharing and a smaller number of paper documents.
"We think the public access part of this is very important," said Judge Andrew Logan, administrative judge for the common pleas court.
The upgrade will give the clerk's office the ability to scan documents and eventually provide Internet access to dockets.
Judge Logan said the upgrade is fairly costly but necessary because the courts' current system no longer can be serviced.
The personal computer-based system coming this fall also will allow better interfacing among the county jail, courts and prosecutor -- something their current computers do not do very well, explained Linda Sypert, county management information services director.
"We have been waiting for this forever," she said.
County to sell notes
County commissioners approved taking out a loan for the project Wednesday. The county will sell notes in anticipation of issuing $1.2 million in bonds to buy and install the computer equipment and related systems.
The maximum maturity of the bonds is five years. The county sets aside a portion of tax millage for its bond retirement fund and will make five annual principal installments at 6 percent interest per year. Huntington National Bank is the paying agent for the bonds; the notes will be sold to Fifth Third Securities Inc.
The matter was added to the commissioners' agenda for Wednesday after their Tuesday work session, and was approved without comment.
Tied to this action was the appropriation of $5,555 from the county's general fund, required to secure a $50,000 grant toward the upgrade from the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services, at Judge Logan's recommendation.
All of this will allow the county to fully integrate a new $212,000 "storage area network" it purchased last year, eventually eliminating the need for some 30 servers no longer supported by vendors.
"It will probably take a year to get it all in place," Sypert said.
There is equipment to be acquired -- new PCs, large flat screens, label writers, laser printers, power supply, scanners and memory; the software and licenses; and staff training. It likely will be September before all of the documents will be signed, she explained.
The county's current system dates to the mid-1990s and uses many dumb terminals; the upgraded software requires use of personal computers.
The system is called CourtView, provided by Maximus, a national court software and case management system used throughout Ohio, based in North Canton.
Judge Logan said the name "CourtView 2000" says a lot: "That's when we started this implementation. It's taken this long to get it done."
Linking the courts
Only a few Trumbull County operations are using the CourtView system, such as the prosecutor, jury office, probate court and Eastern District Court. The task now is to tie together the general division courts, clerk of courts, adult probation, juvenile justice, domestic relations, municipal courts, county recorder archiving and others.
Sypert said a lot of faxes among these offices eventually will be eliminated. The clerk of court's Web site will be updated in real time, and people will have the ability to e-file case documents and payments.
Mahoning County is embarking on an identical process this year, and Sypert said that means Trumbull County is one of only two counties in Ohio without upgraded software. The state wants Trumbull County to move forward, she said,
CourtView provides rapid case creation, linking of related cases, integrated receipting and automatic bookkeeping, imaging of documents onto magnetic or optical storage media, and scheduling of various court activities.