Travis County Commissioners Court
December 13, 2005
Item 9
9. Approve modification no. 3 to contract no. Sl030126lc, bearingpoint, inc., for service level agreement with epay attachment. >> good morning, judge and Commissioners, al learn I can't per, executive -- alicia perez, executive manager for operations. We are here to discuss with you an e filing, it is an amendment to the service level agreement with bearingpoint and this one like we said will -- will revolve around electronic filing. This will enable filers to submit documents on line and receive response from the courts as to the status of their filings. This is one step in really a much broader project that was funned in fy '03. The first phase, the project was divided into two phases, the first phase was the development and purchase and implementation of the document management system in both the district clerk's office and the county clerk's office. That has been accomplished. And we are now in the second phase. In the first phase, which I say accomplished, there were several steps that needed to ebb taken. The -- needed to be taken. The approval of local rules by district judges, the approval by the supreme court of those local rules. By which e filing will be conducted. We had an executive team, an executive committee made up of judge dietz, both the clerks, county clerk, district clerk, myself, the its, we worked with the auditor, the local bar association, bearingpoint, the state courts committee, so it was quite a collaboration and coordination of various multi-departmental and multi-agency groups. On phase 2 is the e filing. That's where we start e filing. I知 going to turn it over to our district clerk. Maria mendosa to talk about the specific project and the approval that we are requesting today.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> I知 the drirkt clerk. District clerk. I agree with alicia, this has been truly collaborative with many county departments involved, we are now requesting your approval for the amendment to the service level agreement, which will now allow us to begin accepting electronic filing. In getting to this point has been an evolutionary process as alicia mentioned. We first had to build the essential infrastructure for implementing our document management system. Which has been a great improvement to our records handling in the office and I値l give you some examples of some of the benefits that we have achieved with -- with the dms. To date the following services -- the following offices now have direct access to dms, can view any document filed since September of 2004. We have all of the civil district and county courts, the associate.
>> s, the 40 masters, the office of the attorney general, the county county, the district attorney, garner-betts, the domestic relations office, all of our public access terminals in the office. Dms eliminated the foot traffic in the office because now this office that I just mentioned have the ability to view documents from their desks or their offices. Judge's notes are now available on the internet and can be viewed by the public in our office terminals. Today we have scanned over 700,000 documents in the system. We don't have to handle past ones that have been scanned. We don't have to put them or file them away. Documents in the dms can be converted to microfilm and vice versa throughout nation and reducing thousands of man hours of filming and scanning. And most of all, with the dms, e filed documents can be transferred in our records represent inventory without -- repository without having to scan them. Yesterday to bring you up to date, we implemented facts case management system in our civil division. The interface with dms and facts is being finalized today, I will be and the report to you at a later date the full benefits of that interface. However, I would like to compliment the its staff, everyone involved for the smooth transition that we've had to facts. We encountered only very minor issues, they were resolved, most of them were resolved yesterday, so I would like to give its some kudos, so thank you very much for all of the work. But I would also like to compliment my staff who has been preparing for this for a long, long time. So I want to thank them publicly for all of their efforts. And facts provides the necessary component to e filing by providing a compliant financial system to record the court costs associated with this process. So now that we have dms, we have taken care of all of the preliminary and now of course facts. The next step is e filing. And phase 1 is a pilot project that will test 400 documents for technical functionality, allow us to refine processes if need be. Pave the way for a respectable adoption rate and make e filing an easy, reliable and affordable alternative to paper filing. The legal -- the legal community has long requested an alternative method and is ready to work with us to achieve these objectives. Mya griffin was with bearingpoint, I have made numerous presentations, already recruited attorneys willing to be part of this pilot. The training schedule is included in the time line for phase 1. While the full benefits of e filing are yet to be identified, we anticipate it will provide fast delivery to our office and a fast response from us, reduce courthouse congestion, reduce our need for off-site storage and extend the life of our extensive scanning equipment by reducing the number of documents we have to personally scan. I would like to introduce mike griffith, with bearingpoint who has been my partner for a -- for a while now, for several years, in trying to -- to spread the word about e filing to the legal community and we came one a marketing plan, part of it has already been implemented, we hope to even make more presentations, we have one coming up in January. So mike I know for those of you that are wondering what is e filing, what does it does -- what does it do, mike will explain that.
>> thank you, amalia, judge. I would like to give you a quick overview of what e filing is. First of all, you have to have a problem before you can have a solution. We think the problem is too much paper. I know Travis County is not unique in having to contend with paper and in a recent survey, 80% of judges that were surveyed noted that the volume increasing volume of paper is a problem. We think there's a better way. Most of the documents that attorneys create and file today are created electronically. They don't use big chief tablets or legal pads anymore. They can submit that through the internet much as they do with electronic mail now. The clerk can review the document electrically, move it to the document repository along with all of the associated docketting information. And use what one clerk has termed paper on demand. You only have to print it when you need to. Quick history, the judicial committee on information technology was actually charged by the legislature to define the processes and the rules for moving documents electronically through the judiciary. They .hated various courses of actions, decided that they -- as you know Texas online is the electronic government portal for the state of Texas. It provides all of the electronic government services, not only for the state, but also in many instances for the county. One of the services they now provide is electronic filing for courts. The Texas online solution is self funding. Texas online is self funding. Paid for on a transaction basis by those who use the system. It provides a cost recovery mechanism for local government so there's no unfunded mandates. If there's any investment costs by the county or the local government to institute a Texas online application, you can recover that cost through the charge of a convenience fee. It's overseen by the Texas department of information resources board, all business decisions are approved by them. It's mandated for use by state agencies and it also provides a variety of other services such as licensing, paying taxes, vehicle registration, permits, so forth. Some of the features of Texas online e filing, first of all secure filer authentication, the filers register, pin and password assigned, they log on much as you do on the local internet, authenticated so they can file in a secure environment. All of the fee and filing information is presented to them online so that they can make sure that they know exactly what document they are filing, what the fees will be. They don't have to call the district clerk's office and ask about filing fees. The clerk review it online, returns a file stamped copy and all of the data filed is kept private. We don't sell, store it, maintain it for 14 days and then once the county has it in their system, backed up, we perjury it from our system. -- percentage it from our -- purge it from our system. The file logs on, submits filing, clerk review, accepts, sends a confirmation and copy back to the filer. It looks like this from an internet perspective. The attorney logs on, enters the case information, the payment information, whether paying by credit card or so forth, they attach their document, submit the filing. The clerk then reviews it, accepts the dowrment and returns a file stamped copy back to the filer for their record. After as they would get in they came to the counter at the courthouse. Advantages for the clerk, secure, cost recovery fee so it's a really a no cost -- zero sum for the county and the clerk. It's a possibility for reducing their paperwork and also the data entry, they don't induce additional errors into the system by keyboard entries when they have to enter information into the case management system. They don't have to worry about credit cards. Texas online handles all of those processes so there's no credit card fees or anything like that to deal with from the clerk's perspective. Pace is guaranty payment is guaranteed. If an attorney for example overspends their credit card and logs on that, that filing is still processed. The clerk gets it accepted. The filer gets it into the system, we deposit the money into the clerk's account, so there's no credit card or fee hassles. There's for scanning of documents. Since they arrive electronically. In addition the clerk court coordinator can -- two way communication process, also postage and handling savings. With exuntions, filing, no postage. From the attorney's perspective, they can file 24 hours a day, seven place a week, anyplace they can reach the internet. From a filers perspective, the courthouse never closes. Free calculations on the screen. File stamped receipt back. Secure payment system, they don't have to worry about their credit card being compromised and they can also get electronic service of copies. That is as they file the document with the clerk, they can serve opposing counsel with a coip of that document automatically. Finally they can serve the court's orders noticings and settings. One state-wide filing standard, as ms. Perez mentioned. Standard across the state. The attorney doesn't have to guess what the rules are in Travis County versus harris or dallas. One standard across the state. Saves them time and money. We have 19 counties that are up right now. Travis will join us, we hope, in January as -- the 20th. And in summary, we are talking about electronic filing in civil cases that are governed by the rules of civil procedure. District and county courts will start with district courts initially in travis and then eventually we hope move to the county court. Rules of civil procedure will include that. Attorneys can do electronic service, select from among seven service providers to file anywhere in the state to include travis. At this time --
>> thank you. I just want to take a manuscript to also introduce chris cox who has been the project manager for several years for this particular project. This is a project that planned directed by a multi-departmental committee made up of judges to three elected officials appointed officials and technical assistants. It was planned and implemented, changed when it needed to be changed. The original objectives of the project was to reduce paperwork, the need for more storage at the historical courthouse, to automate processes in both the district clerk and county clerk's office, so bring efficiency, to provide immediate viewing of documents by judges without having to carry the multitude of files up to their offices. Now they have it on line. Another objective is to provide public access to documents filed with the district courts. Right now we have intranet availability, we will be working on internet availability. So that the public can have access. Also this particular phase of e filing will be a revenue generator. The auditor has approved $203,000. As the eligible revenue specifically it's $2 per filing that can specifically be attributed to the pay back to Travis County of the investment.
>> let me ask --
>> for this particular. How do we actually end up archiving for -- for history purposes as far as referral, retention of records that -- that have been moved on through the system, but how -- how are those records referred to -- as far as --
>> to microfilm.
>> I知 sorry.
>> we can convert that to microfilm directly from the commuter. From the computer, from the automated copy.
>> you have another basis through the microfilm because I think that need to be flushed out because things can be down and systems can fail. There is a need to refer to things so there can be according to what you are saying --
>> we are working with records management.
>> okay. Because that's -- I think that's pretty important for the public to know that. Number two, is other counties in the state of Texas, are they basically as far as Travis County, where are we in line as far as making this accomplishment, what are we according to the other counties that may be doing this in the state of Texas as far as the ranking is concerned? Are we in the top five, da-da-da, have been any comparative analysis made as far as where we are at this stage of the game as far as doing this compared to other counties in the state?
>> well all I can say is every other urban county is offering e filing except Travis County at this point.
>> would you repeat that, please.
>> except tarrant.
>> tarrant county. Tarrant county is, not tarrant district.
>> okay. Every urban county as of today, except for tarrant county, e filing to the legal community. We are not. We will be the next urban county to offer that service.
>> okay. Okay. Thank you, thank you for those answers.
>> I need to get a sense, because I -- I speak e, to make sure that we don't have a disconnect. Because we've had wonderful projects, but we need to make sure that everybody has -- everything has been covered here. I saw the note from the auditor's office that said yes indeed we can certify the fee and the cost recovery. What I don't see is a -- is a bless this project from the auditor. I want to make sure that we have complete compatibility with all of our financial systems and that in hearing everything hear that is eee, that there's not anything that's manual because we don't have an interface today, that will allow the dumping of all of this great electronic stuff into what systems that we have got now. I need to hear compatibility, the interface already exists and nothing will be done manual. Basically if susan is happy I知 happy. Or [indiscernible] either one.
>> the auditor's office is -- rewe worked with the clerk's office to come up with reconciliation procedures. I don't think it's 100% automated, it is as good as we can do. And we are satisfied that if the procedures are followed, everything will be fine on the money side of things. If you remember just to refresh the court, along when -- when certain e pay type olympics first arose, one of the things that the Commissioners court directed was that if it involved money being paid over the internet, you wanted the auditor's office to look at that and make sure that the reconciliation, that we would be able to account for the money correctly. Do ensure that we also -- to ensure we require a slight change to the sla --
>> that is.
>> service level agreement. Sorry. That you are approving here today, there was an addition made to that, bearingpoint has a third party, if I get this wrong I知 sure that I will be corrected, a third party vendor who does the actual processing of the credit card payments. Then deposits them into the clerk's account and we requested a report from that vendor which would show each specific deposit that was made and all of the transactions that make up that deposit, which will allow the clerk's office a much easier route to do a reconciliation and make sure all of the fees were accurately collected and accounted for. So we have written procedures that we have reviewed from the district clerk's office that deal with that. Reconciliation process.
>> so if her so inclined, you all are happy and satisfied that the -- that the financial oversight is -- is something that you are comfortable with?
>> yes. We have -- we are going to look, the first phase of this is a pilot project. We will be looking at that to make sure that the procedures that we put in place actually do work. So ...
>> unless it gets way too technical, what piece of this is not automated, that somehow there is a gap here, help me understand whether that's something small, large or we're just -- it's just is that ever going to be a gap that's filled. Help me understand the magnitude.
>> if you look -- if you have page 10 up there. You look at the powerpoint presentation, what we have done is -- is that right now the way that this solution will work is it will be dms to bearingpoint. Okay? And that will be the mode of operation that will be used during the pilot project. What is all of those things that you see on there completed the tasks, they have been completed. The pending, modification to store ftp documents and dms documents installed and tested. That still needs to be done. Go to page 11 please. This is the facts piece. Okay? Chris, do you want to talk about the bar code, how that works, how that helps?
>> yes. Anything that is coming in annually across the counter, there is an event code. When that event is turned around, entered into facts, it automatically generates a bar code. That bar code is then attached to the actual document, the filing document. And then it is just automatically scanned into the system. There is no additional data entered. The dms product actually pulls that data from facts into the document management system. Now, that's anything that is coming in manually at the present time. Across the counter, so forth. There are still things with the e filing that we're working out and working with -- with the vendor and so forth. Doing it with the document management system. There's some testing and planning that still has to be worked out in that particular area which can be done. This way the judges will be able to actually view documents from facts or from the document management system. So if facts does have a -- their own different system, it does go down. The judicial community would still be able to get at the documents for continuing their operations. So -- so barring a catastrophe for the whole data center is lost, that operation is still continued.
>> help me understand here, is there anything related to the it resources, workforce et cetera that is taking away from getting facts, I just want to hear it publicly, we are not taking away from new project that I知 excited about, but I知 making sure that we are still not impacting any of our schedules on facts, yes or no joe will work just groovy, I want to hear it said in public that we are not taking away resources.
>> [indiscernible] its director. All of the facts conversions are done for the district clerk. So there is -- our staff now is con at any rating on the -- concentrating on the county clerk criminal which will be the next to go up. President's day. In February. So our resources are devoted to that and that's not slowing down the facts conversion.
>> then in terms of just the general public to understand, are they going to have the ability that they feel like pulling up documents at 3:00 in the morning from their home computer, are they going to be able to do -- access into the system? How do we get to what is basically the virtual courthouse, molly and I have had good discussions about this. Where we are headed. How -- does this get us there or down that road?
>> this actually will get us there. We are still stepping up some steps to get to the top landing. Part of that is the equipment, installation, product, so forth. Our internet, we found a way that we can possibly save a little money in relationship to taking our internet design of documents for searching from your home over the internet. Also putting them on the intranet. We should have that operational by the end of the month. So that anybody in the county -- take me if you would take me back to that. I have to get to the internet. Let's dump that.
>> let's turn around and do the very top one. This is a test mode, testing at the present time. Put on the internet so that all county employees can turn around and search and get to this information. We like -- we would like just a little bit of information in our web group, final liesessing that. Final losing that. Also getting -- finalizing that. Also getting e-mail set up. Actually this is visible at the present time for let's say we brought up the -- let's bring up the -- the different one, do the pull down window, we are going to go to the drirkt district clerk since she's here. Arrow down to the cause number. Put in d-1-ag-93-011330. You can see there are several options,s there's -- as far as you can put in smith, jones, whatever. It will actually go out and retrieve if there are multiple, search by a larger group, this basically gives you the case information. At this particular point in time, let's just arrow down over on the side over here. You can see that it is actually brought up the documents. This is hitting on the live environment at the present time. So if you wanted to turn around and bring up a document, you would just hit on the pdf, this being adobe acrobat, it has the functions, the information, you can actually sit there, read the information and bring it back and forth.
>> again, let me make sure that I understand this. This is in a test mode, is the general public going to be able to do what you just did there. Or is it just --
>> technically that is the goal. There are some issues, in a slide up there, they have to do with the redaction, information in the documents, that really we all have to do with. Make sure social securities, date of birth, those sorts of things are redacted. That's something that we will still have to develop a policy and rules.
>> right now it would be like somebody from mya's office, or somebody authorized personnel, therefore if they pull this up, get it quickly, they would have to do the redaction, whatever on that individual basis before it is turned over.
>> this is in test mode right now. We aren't doing redaction. The rules committee came up with rules 14, 15, that we are reviewing, that will go into effect pretty soon to look at what kind of information can be viewed by the public. When the attorneys also file, they will be having to put that information in a separate sheet. All of that is being reviewed at this point. Pretty new rules that came down that we are reviewing.
>> the -- if the redaction does occur, that -- it will be a major effort, initially planned because the legislature made these changes during this last session. So in -- that come be a very huge job. Impact putting stuff on the internet. Again what we have on the intranet, we will port over to the internet at the time and point when we can.
>> mainly we are talking about family law, filings and petitions that have all kinds of information on there that --
>> divorce.
>> so in terms of getting up those stairs, I will get knew a second, mike. Getting up those stairs, even simply the fact that our courts personnel would quickly be able to pull that up as opposed to go find the box, this will be extraordinarily helpful. We of course have to do everything in accordance with the state of Texas about privacy laws, et cetera, et cetera, that they give us guide lines in the same way that the lovely gasb people give us guidelines about what we have to do, mandated not discretionary in terms of financial information and appropriately tracking. Mike.
>> I just didn't get a chance to answer your question. You asked what part of the process was not automated. What part was manual. It's really the financial process is somewhat manual. Just not technically or anything, but what happens is a person files the stuff, comes over in a queue to the clerk's office, same noting or the financial events codes in there for the fees that are being charged. The clerk has to review that, make sure that they are right. Then they actually have to go into facts and receipt that money there. That is the part that's manual.
>> do that interface with -- with what the auditor is really looking for? Once her staff have received -- have set of -- receipt of that revenue, the interface that's lacking at point is -- at this. Is between your office, the auditor and also the linkage with the clerk is that --
>> no.
>> what is that?
>> it's actually [multiple voices]
>> it's the interface.
>> between what.
>> between the bearingpoint piece of the software and facts. [multiple voices] at that point they have to make a judgment that the fees, they have to review it anyhow. That would have to happen even if this was totally automated. And then they have to physically go into facts and receipt that payment that was made for that particular filing.
>> okay.
>> and that's not a duplicate -- I mean, it would be nice if that part was automated down the road. Just to mauro sure that it's -- just to make sure that it's clear, it's manual, but for the a duplication of effort. It hasn't been done by anyone in the county up to that point. It would be the same if I came in and paid, you know, at the counter in the district clerk service office -- [multiple voices]
>> thank you.
>> a couple of questions regarding cost recovery. We believe whatever cost we incur to ensure public access will not be reimbursible or recoveriable?
>> if it involves a direct cost that has to do with soft wear, hardware, we could recover that. If it has to do with -- if it's pretty specific on what can be recovered, what can't. Basically any payroll type of thing cannot. So if you had to add people to do that, you could not recover that cost. We have certified 203,000 as we have been shown. This was the part we felt was recoverable. So far, in additional things are done --
>> I was just reading what's on the screen there.
>> probably become an unfunded mandate to redact information. Now, if we redact, it will be at whose request?
>> it would have to be mandated legislatively.
>> legally required. Well, I don't -- seems to me that would be directly traceable to the law and best of your memoryible.
>> it has to -- reimbursible.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...under the specific parts that are recoverable it has to be either under the use of electronic maiment paiments, hardware, software costs or interfacing with the software systems. Those are the only costs that are recoverable under the law the way it is now.
>> pardon me, sir. And that is surely as it relates to e-filing. So anybody that comes across the counter to file a document, the recovery does not apply.
>> okay. So if we approve this today, implementation is planned for January? Is that what I heard? So 60 days later we ought to have a status report to indicate whether we've been able to overcome glitches, whether everything is smoothly operating, etcetera.
>> and you would also be approving the justification for the cost recovery.
>> okay. Any other questions or comments? Then I move approval. Any more discussion? What item is this now?
>> nine, judge.
>> I lost it as I was trying to work my way through the agenda. This is approve modification number 3, and that would include everything -- modification number 3 would include everything you just said or we'd need a separate item for that?
>> that includes everything. The test pilot, the approval from the auditor's office.
>> plus the attachment. All that is in the modification. That's what the motion covers. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank y'all.
>> thank y'all very much.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 3:38 PM