43
Warren Municipal Court goes live with new computer system
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Warren Municipal Court went live last week with its new computer system that is providing the court and its customers with new levels of convenience and savings of time and expense.
The court never wanted to make the switch to Pioneer Technology Group of Sanford, Fla., but the business troubles of its former provider, American Cadastre of Herndon, Va., forced a change.
American Cadastre, known as AMCAD, abuptly announced last year that it was getting out of the court-software business and filed for bankruptcy, which spelled big trouble for Warren Municipal Court and AMCAD’s other customers.
Without the company standing behind its product, the courts were going to be unable to upgrade the system when required to by the Ohio Supreme Court or Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, said Margaret Scott, Warren Municipal clerk of courts.
Warren started using the AMCAD system in early 2012. The court paid $598,000 for that system. The city filed a claim in AMCAD’s bankruptcy filing to try to recoup some of the money it paid, and the case still is pending.
The new system costs $450,000 plus about $50,000 per year for technical support starting in 2016 and $27,000 for new hardware, such as new monitors and touch pads that have been installed. The money is coming from fees paid by users of the court, not money used to pay for police or other city services.
“It’s what we wanted to do in the first place but never got the chance to,” Scott said of the new software, called Benchmark.
One of the primary benefits of Benchmark is that it eventually will make it unnecessary to print or store paper copies of case files because they will be stored electronically.
Being “paperless” also will provide enormous benefits for retrieving documents and other case information because staff no longer will have to physically pull files from storage locations at the court building and on Main Avenue Southwest.
The judges, court staff and the public will be able to access all of that, including documents, electronically.
The judges now have touch-pad monitors on the bench that allow them to enter the results of hearings as they are happening, which allows the case file to be updated immediately.
It gives the judge access to documents from previous hearings involving a defendant while on the bench that personnel would normally have to retrieve for him.
For the customer, there are now signature pads in the courtroom like at the store that a customer can sign to speed up paperwork. Monitors at the clerk windows can show a customer his account, payments, balance and documents connected to his or her case.
Work stations in the courtroom also allow deputy clerks to attach audio recordings made of each hearing to the case file in the database. That saves retrieval time when an audio recording is needed for an appeal or when it is requested by a customer or attorney, Scott said.
Perhaps even more useful for the customer, he or she can now make payments using a credit card on the court’s website, Scott said. That can limit the number of trips to the court a person must make. It also applies payments faster.
That could, for example, reduce the amount of time it takes for someone’s driver’s license to be reinstated, she said.
Customers also will be able to view case documents online through the website.
The court still is loading historical documents into the database, so not all will be available immediately. Electronic filing of cases will be added soon, saving time for attorneys and other court customers.
The court also will have a kiosk in the lobby at some point that will accept payments and allow customers to file items such as small claims, Scott said.
Being paperless will save money. “We generate about 10,000 pieces of paper in three months for criminal and traffic cases,” Scott said.