JISAC Superior Court Subcommittee

April 18, 2000

Introductions

Yvonne and Steve called the meeting to order, and welcomed members to this first meeting of the subcommittees of the JISAC. Committee members introduced themselves.

JIS Advisory Committee and Subcommittees

Yvonne walked through the materials that were distributed via listserv on April 10. These address the JISAC's mission, its charge to these subcommittees, and formats for managing subcommittee work. JIS Advisory Committee reporting relationships were discussed, particularly with respect to the newly constituted BJA and long-range planning. The importance of clear lines of communication was stressed. The charter for JISAC and its subcommittees was reviewed, together with the current membership and staff listing.

To address the need for greater coordination, a format (as distributed) has been adopted for JISAC action item requests to other committees/associations. It standardizes those requests to clearly specify the business context and recommendation. Similarly, a standard format has been adopted for sending issues from the subcommittees to the parent, JISAC. Problem statements (example distributed) will demand a good deal of preparation on the part of subcommittee members and, especially, support staff, who will need to ensure each issue is clearly articulated, thorough background is provided, sound analysis is undertaken (including both business and technical considerations), and a well-researched recommendation is advanced.

Yvonne noted minutes of the first four meetings of the JISAC (as distributed) help round out a good understanding of the JISAC's charge to these subcommittees.

Business Need Guidelines

Steve walked through the Business Need Guidelines. The JISAC, recognizing that demands for JIS enhancements dramatically outstrip resource availability, adopted these guidelines as the cornerstone tool in prioritizing requested changes relative to solidly-justified business need. The guidelines specify that JIS modifications or enhancements are to be evaluated on the basis of the following prioritized criteria: statutory and court rule compliance, quality of justice, efficiency, and data quality across courts. The JISAC directed these subcommittees to pursue their work plans in accordance with these guidelines.

JIS User Request Guidelines

The JISAC further adopted JIS User Request Guidelines. An updated version was distributed at the meeting, to replace the earlier version sent via listserv. In addition to soliciting the detailed information necessary for the subcommittees to develop their recommendations relative to the Business Need Guidelines, the User Request Guidelines also require all requests be sponsored by a judge, court administrator, or county clerk--who, by virtue of level of authority, may be expected to consider the matter from a "big-picture" view.

Electronic submission of requests is preferred, and the form will soon be available on the web. Steve emphasized the JISAC's balancing of the need for detailed information with the recognition that courts will not always have meaningful information for some items in the request guidelines. It was stressed that requests which are more thorough in addressing each of the items will have a significant edge in moving more quickly through OAC's processing and research stages, which are necessary to bring the request before the appropriate subcommittee for consideration.

Code Approval Guidelines

The Code Approval Guidelines were reviewed, and the four criteria discussed. Several requests stemming from new legislation were reviewed: (1) Change amount on JRS transaction code 1175 (Fee, Anti-Harassment Filing) from a fixed amount of $110 to $41; (2) Create a new JRS transaction code 1112 (Mandatory Arbitration Fee), with a variable amount up to $120; (3) Create two new superior court civil cause codes for vulnerable adult protection orders and foreign protection orders; (4) implement new finding and judgment codes for traffic infractions: DF - Deferred Findings, DD - Dismissed After Deferral, and CD - Committed After Deferral. Each of these were approved, and OAC will implement these changes as soon as possible to comply with the June 8 effective date for legislation.

Data Quality Guidelines

The Guidelines were reviewed. In clarifying JISAC's charge to the subcommittees to identify no more than 25 critical data elements, Steve noted a variety of responses can be considered following identification, including system edits, audit reports, training and other measures to facilitate achievement of accuracy and completeness standards.

Best Practices

Yvonne apprised the group that JISAC has developed an operational definition for establishing best practices. Circumstances that would prompt development of best practices might include new statutes (such as new provisions for deferred infraction findings) or conversion issues (e.g., such as arose for JCI regarding entry of unborn children into the person database). Defined best practices will drive JIS changes and enhancements. As best practices are developed, they will be documented on-line for easy reference.

Subcommittee Task Lists

Steve described the efforts that are being made to unify a process for managing and processing JIS change requests. The total list of outstanding requests is much larger than the task lists distributed for this meeting. Legacy requests are being reviewed for inclusion. With new requests, the lists will continually grow. JISAC has reviewed the current lists, and placed the items into priority tiers, to provide guidance to the subcommittees in their development of work plans. In addition, the JISAC, at their April 20 meeting, will be deciding which JIS projects will be acted on next year. Janet McLane clarified that three projects -- JCI, CAPS, and ACORDS -- are grandfathered in as high priority, so are not listed among those the JISAC will be deliberating. In the future, all such projects will come before the JISAC.

There was considerable discussion of programming resources available to support any subcommittee decisions regarding tasks on these lists. Janet McLane acknowledged that most of these items are maintenance issues, and those resources will always be slim, with the bulk of programmers dedicated to projects (such as JCI). However, Janet urged the subcommittees to not get mired in resource considerations; what's really needed from the JISAC subcommittees is clear decisions on importance of those competing requests. OAC will then provide "sizings" so the resource issues can be addressed.

Janet emphasized the success of the JISAC and its subcommittees depends on (1) extensive staff work-ups, with materials provided in advance to subcommittee members, and (2) members' advance review of those materials with peers, and the bringing of that peer feedback to the meetings.

Subcommittee Chairs and Future Meetings

The group scheduled one more joint meeting, to take place Wednesday, June 14 to address domestic violence issues which appear on both committees' task lists, and to launch discussion of the 25 crucial data quality items. [Update: This meeting was subsequently cancelled due to inadequate preparation time.]

Meeting participants broke into separate subcommittees, and made the following decisions: The Superior Court Subcommittee will be chaired by Pat Swartos, with Dave Hardy as Vice Chair. Meetings will be held bi-monthly, and the following dates were selected: Wednesday, August 23 at Pierce County; Wednesday, October 18 in Olympia; Wednesday, December 13 in Seattle (Two Union Square). The CLJ Subcommittee elected Patty King as Chair. They scheduled meetings for Friday, July 28 and Wednesday, September 13. The Subcommittee also reviewed and approved Randy's proposal (as distributed via listserv) regarding distribution of remaining copies of Brio.

Driver History Initiative Project (DHIP)

Ron O'Gwin of the Department of Licensing, made a presentation to the CLJ Subcommittee regarding the Driver's History Initiative Project (DHIP), and requested the subcommittee recommend JIS changes to accommodate the project. Mary Lewis and Gayle Tajima reported on Seattle Municipal Court's efforts in support of that project.

The subcommittee deliberated the request, and determined it is not a current priority for the limited resources available for JIS changes. While DHIP would alleviate data-entry issues at DOL, it would have minimal benefit for the courts. Judges have access to driver history information through other DISCIS screens. Seattle Municipal Court's economies from participation in DHIP would not be realized for the other, much smaller courts. In addition, Seattle Municipal Court, (unlike others) was already entering some of the additional data required by DHIP prior to their participation in the project. The additional data-entry would impose a substantial burden to most of Washington's limited jurisdiction courts.

The subcommittee also felt that focusing on courts as the entry point for this information is inappropriate. Development and implementation of electronic citations, which can then be downloaded to various users, was felt to be more desirable. There were significant concerns that changes made in JIS now might be incompatible with developing electronic citation technology and necessitate additional changes as that technology comes on line. Concern was also expressed regarding the prospect of having to store hard copies of citations, if DOL ceases to do so because of the electronic transfer.

Consideration was given to cooperating with DHIP if the programming were done by contract resources paid by DOL's federal grant. However, Alan noted this approach does not avoid the cost of the approval process (committee and staff oversight). And Pam stressed that does nothing to alleviate the additional data-entry burden.

The DOL request was denied by majority vote.

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The meeting was adjourned.