Officials awarded a three-year, $309,525 contract for the filing system

November 26, 2014 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County’s court system is continuing to move forward in a quest to install an electronic filing system that promises to replace nearly all paperwork.

Kathi McNabb Welsh, the county’s chief deputy clerk, noted during Tuesday’s county commissioners meeting that the new system will allow a greater number of documents to be moved through with greater efficiency at a lower cost.

During the session, officials awarded a three-year, $309,525 contract to Orem, Utah-based Tybera Development Group Inc. for the filing system.

Employee training should get underway soon, and a variety of preparations need to be made, including changing or altering various codes. A main goal is to have the e-filing system fully running by September 2015, she said.

The system likely will be first used by attorneys to file documents related to civil cases in common pleas court, then used in county courts, McNabb Welsh continued.

“It’s a cultural change and a new way of doing business in Mahoning County,” she said, adding that the Mahoning County Bar Association also supports the move.

Money for the system is to come from the county and common-pleas courts’ special-projects funds and not the general fund, McNabb Welsh noted.

Only a handful of Ohio’s 88 counties have started implementing such a plan, but Montgomery County, which includes the Dayton area, is already reaping the benefits of its e-filing system, she explained.