Members Present: Justice Mary Fairhurst, Acting Chair, William Holmes, Judge Michael Trickey, Siri Woods, Judge Thomas Wynne.

 

Members Absent: Judge James Heller, Richard Johnson, Judge Steven Rosen.

 

Also Present: Lynne Alfasso (AOC), Barbara Miner (King County Clerk), Gail Early (DSHS), Sally de Laive (DSHS).

 

Acting Chair Justice Mary Fairhurst called the meeting to order. Lynne Alfasso summarized the request before the committee. The DSHS Division of Child Support (DSHS/DCS) has requested that one employee have JIS-Link access to paternity cases in SCOMIS for the purpose of auditing requests for reimbursement for the time spent by county clerks and court commissioners on paternity cases. The state is allowed to provide reimbursement using federal funds granted to the state for that purpose; however, the state is required to audit the reimbursement program. At present, a DSHS/DCS employee travels to the county clerks’ offices for the purpose of reviewing paternity case dockets for audit purposes. Having JIS-Link access to paternity cases would allow the employee to review the dockets on her office computer.

 

The committee discussed that paternity cases are a case type 5 in SCOMIS. Both paternity and adoption cases are case type 5s. Under the current JIS-Link system, there is no way to give DSHS-DCS the requested JIS-Link access to paternity cases without also giving them access to adoption cases. Adoption cases are a confidential case type. Another issue raised by committee members is that the statutes are not clear that the DSHS Division of Child Support has the right to access confidential paternity files.

 

There was no motion to act on the request; therefore, the request was not approved by the committee.

 

The DSHS representatives who were present stated that they understood the reason for the committee’s action and they had other alternatives they were going to consider to find a way to more efficiently access the case information they needed. They thanked the committee for giving them the opportunity to be heard on this matter.