Efforts by state judicial leaders to develop a $1.7 billion new computer system are at “high risk” because of an aggressive schedule and a tight budget, an outside auditor has concluded.
Taxpayers have so far paid more than a third of a billion dollars to develop the system, which is intended to allow on line court filings, fine payments and access to case files and give the courts real-time ability to share records with law enforcement, social service and other government agencies.
The complex project has been in the public eye lately because of judicial leaders’ state-budget-crisis decisions to keep the project alive while closing trial courts and furloughing court workers one day a month. Click here to read about court employees’ reactions to the program’s growth.
The project’s outside auditor, Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting, has been warning since 2007 that certain aspects of its development were shaky, a review of its audits shows. The Administrative Office of the Courts made the auditor’s reports public recently in response to a request from SEIU Local 721’s Center for Public Accountability.
It said in its September report to the Administrative Office of the Courts, the staff arm of California’s Judicial Council, that “the overall health of the [computer] project continu[es] to be mixed.”
Click here to read the progress report about the AOC’s case management system (pdf)
But neither the auditor nor the AOC was helpful in assessing whether the characterizations of the project should be cause for worry.
Consulting firm partner Marianne Evashenk, California state government’s former deputy chief auditor, explained in an e-mail: “We cannot comment on work we do for others.”
John Judnick, senior manager of internal audits for the Judicial Council and AOC, was vague. He said that “high risk” just meant the project costs a lot, will be used by a lot of people and is important.
As for the project’s mixed health, he directed our attention to the “Project Scorecard” section of the report, which features illustrations of yellow and green-colored shapes next to text blocks on specific technical issues. He noted there were nine green shapes and six yellow warning shapes. That’s why, he said, the health of the project was deemed “mixed.”
– Ted Rohrlich