Washington Courts: Judicial News Report Detail

The Power of Courts Helping Courts

Staff turnover, a new boss, or a blitz of operational problems, can lead to meltdowns in a clerk's office, jamming dockets and delaying due process.

To help courts in distress, the District and Municipal Court Judges Association started a program in 1992 called "Courts helping courts". It was based on a simple idea: use volunteers from one court to help employees in another put their court back in action.

For Grant County Clerk Gordon Harris and office manager Dorothy Black, however, it went farther than that. With the help of a large cadre of volunteer employees supplied by courts in their own county plus those in Chelan and Lewis counties, they were able to completely restructure their office. In effect, they lifted their office up from 1980 operating levels, to present-decade standards.

Grant County's situation

Just before Harris took office in December of 1994, Grant County Superior Court Judge Evan Sperline contacted the Office of the Administrator for the Courts (OAC) for assistance for the county clerk's office. Harris, the judge realized, was about to inherit an office operation that suffered from basic inefficiencies.

His first day on the job, Harris found hard copy file material stacked on floors and stuck in corners, waiting to be filed. He discovered "office automation" meant one personal computer, two "dumb" terminals, and a collection of typewriters.

On New Year's Day, Lewis County Clerk Donna Karvia and Chelan County Clerk Siri Woods met Harris at his new office to do an assessment of his new office, as left for him by his predecessor.

"The first thing out of Siri's mouth was Oh my God, you have a mess,'" said Harris. After a day-long search through endless files, Woods and Karvia concluded Grant County was more than 15 years behind the curve, operating at efficiency levels dating back to the early 80's.

"We had several thousands of files sitting on the floor, including thousands and thousands of entries that had never been entered into SCOMIS," he said.

Woods volunteered members of her own, Chelan County staff each weekend in January to help straighten up the mess, and help input SCOMIS entries. It took the visiting clerks hours to find court files.

Internal communications

Because of a long lack of contact with other courts, the Grant County staff had little knowledge of how their operation compared with others, Harris said. This, added to the impending restructuring program, meant internal communications between staff members and Harris was critical.

"I had a meeting with the staff and told them the mess we had," said Harris. As he suspected, most didn't realize how inefficient the office really was. "Most just assumed that every other county in the state of Washington was operating at the same efficiency level," he explained. The court's jury business, and all billing was either handwritten or typed manually.

"We needed a shot in the arm, some direction as to how other courts processed cases" said Black. "A lot of what we were doing was redundant, and we were so far behind, that it just snowballed. There was no way of getting out from underneath it."

Setting up the program

Reorganization of the clerk's office took three complete weekends with five Chelan County staffers, along with all of Grant County's court staff. Harris also recruited volunteers from the Ephrata Senior Center.

By the end of the month, every document had been entered into SCOMIS. The results were dramatic: Before January, clerks struggled for days to prepare a single court calendar. After the reorganization, calendars could be completed in less than an hour.

Harris credits the help from Woods, Karvia and other clerks throughout the state for his office's successful reorganization. "It was the help of individual clerks, and the support I got from the (Washington Association of County Clerks)," said Harris. "I had people calling up and asking how are you doing, what do you need?"

Black agreed, "If we have any problems or questions we just get in touch with someone we think might be able to help a lot of it is just asking,"

Harris also credits his staff for embracing the major changes that needed to occur. He also believes education and training for court staff is essential. "I had one staff person that was so embarrassed when she found out how bad we were, that she wanted to sit in the corner and put a sack over her head," he said.

Since '95

For Harris and his crew, the improvements have continued.

In a little more than three years, the clerk's office has acquired computers for all staff members, installed a new phone system and an automated jury program. Just as important, the county clerk's office has gained the financial support of the county commissioners. With new funds, the office will add three FTE's: a financial collector, a court facilitator, and a full-time interpreter.

And it can point at savings--a reduction in "comp" and overtime. "In 1994, there were more than 3,000 hours of comp time on the books, and thousands of hours on overtime," said Harris. During his first year in office, Harris estimates the staff used only 25 hours. "We get our work done, and the staff goes home at five o'clock."

Microfilming of records has also been brought up to date, and just last week, Harris said, criminal files covering a span of nearly 60 years--1902 to 1970--were shipped to archives in Olympia.

Into the year 2000

Without the Courts Helping Courts program and the clerk's professional association, Harris isn't sure where his office would be today.

"It brought us out of 1980, and able to approach the year 2000," he said. "At the end of each day we have our work done, and we've added other programs along the way that have enhanced the administrative abilities of the court."

SIDEBAR: Courts helping Courts

Courts Helping Courts began as a joint effort of the District and Municipal Court Judges' Association and the District and Municipal Court Management Association as a way to help courts with operational, procedural, or efficiency problems. An oversight Committee includes judicial and court manager representatives from across the state.

Since the program started in 1992 it has helped about ten courts statewide. It's next assignment is to assist South Snohomish District Court process a backlog of data entry that accumulated during the court's conversion to DISCIS.

The Committee has assisted courts when the court has:

• Staff turnover
• A new judge
• A new administrator

The committee has also assisted courts with problems in:

• Accounting
• Intergovernmental relations
• Civil and small claims
• Court operations

How to Get Help

Contact a committee member or OAC committee staff representative (Yvonne Pettus (360) 705-5314) to request assistance.

The committee member will attempt to find a volunteer to assist your court. If your request for assistance is extensive, the volunteer will work with you and the committee to determine the best way to address your court's need.

Funding

Though assistance is often provided on a voluntary basis, limited funding is available through the Committee.