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Three Summit County courts receive technology grants

RICHARD WEINER
Legal News Reporter

Published: May 22, 2015

The Summit County Common Pleas and Juvenile courts, as well as the Stow Municipal Court, received grant funding to upgrade their court technology from the Ohio Supreme Court, in a brief May 14 ceremony presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor.

The funds are a part of the Ohio Courts Technology Initiative, a fund that totaled a little over $3.5 million when it initially began taking applications on March 1.

The final applications were due May 15, 2015. O’Connor said that about 40 courts have received grant money under the program, including the three from Summit County, and that there are still about 75 applications still being reviewed. As of the date of this presentation, a little over $1 million has been awarded.

In her opening remarks, O’Connor said that, “we have been going all around the state, giving this money out to the courts. We know that, where there is a lack of money (for the court system), there is a lack of justice.”

The initial funds for the grant program came from “extra” money that O’Connor had found while working on the court budget last year, she said.

“I found a surplus in the budget—money that had been designated for projects, but not used, because the programs were not yet ready to be funded,” she said. “I thought: ‘What better way to use this money than to spread it out to local courts?’”

The technology initiative was designed to help any Ohio court upgrade any obsolete hardware or software.

The Stow Municipal Court grant totaled $13,729. The money will be used for scanners, desktop computers, and upgrades to the court’s case management system. In particular, O’Connor said that this improvement will allow the judges of that court to complete functions in the courtroom electronically that have previously been done by hand.

Stow Municipal Judge Kim Hoover said that, “on behalf of my staff and myself, we are grateful to the Supreme Court for providing grant funding for (these) technology initiatives.”

Summit County Juvenile Court received $11,398.56, which will be used for replacing servers that have become obsolete over time.

“I deeply appreciate the Supreme Court’s recognition that upgrading our servers will result in the court functioning more effectively,” said Juvenile Court Judge Linda Tucci Teodosio.

The general division of the Summit County Common Pleas Court received $40,600, which O’Connor said will be used for updating the court’s case management system. Among other improvements, the system updates will allow the judges to sign journal entries in the courtroom, a marked improvement over the current system.

Common Pleas Court Administrative Judge Tammy O’Brien said that the in-court signature capabilities will, “improve our workflow by enabling journal entries and court orders to be automated. All of our judges appreciate the support of the Supreme court.”

In a conversation after the grant presentation, O’Connor said that the technological backbone of the Ohio court system was a priority for her.

“I would like to see all local courts have the technology that they need to store and transfer all of their data,” O’Connor said.

She said that there are a couple of important areas in Ohio court technology that need to be upgraded to bring the state’s systems up to the level that she would like it to attain.

“The first area is record checking,” she said. “I would like to see all local courts have the technology that they need to record their data, and then we can all share all of that data.” She said that there were still nearly two dozen courts in the state that do not use databases to track court records, and that that “100 percent” of Ohio courts should keep their records in electronic form.

O’Connor added that bringing all of the courts up-to-date technologically was important for the public service functions of the court system altogether.

Along with that, she said that gathering and collating the greatest amount of data possible within the state’s court system is one of her primary visions of the future of court technology.

“We need data as a resource to figure out where we need to put our other resources. We have to know where we are and where we are going, and we can’t do that without the data.”


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