Title
District Attorney’s Office and Public Defender’s Office recommending the Board
1) Approve the replacement of existing case management systems to a consolidated, single database case management system by Karpel Solutions, which will provide a comprehensive, modern system to meet the business needs of both departments;
2) Waive the competitive bidding requirements for the purchase of the Karpel Case Management System, in accordance with County Ordinance 3.12.160 Section B;
3) Authorize the District Attorney and Public Defender to negotiate agreements for products and services for the purchase and installation of the Karpel Case Management System;
4) Authorize the Purchasing Agent to execute said Agreements, contingent upon review and approval by County Counsel and Risk Management, in the estimated not-to-exceed amounts of $386,500 for the Prosecutor Module and $95,700 for the Defender Module. The estimated not-to-exceed amounts include the purchase price for the modules, data conversion, installation, training and one year of maintenance;
5) Approve and authorize the use of the AB109 District Attorney and Public Defender Subaccount funding for these purchases;
6) Approve the addition of the Prosecutor Module to the District Attorney’s FY 2018/19 Fixed Asset list and approve the addition of the Defender Module to the Public Defender’s FY 2018/19 Fixed Asset list;
7) Approve and authorize the Chair to sign a budget transfer increasing revenue and expense appropriations within the District Attorney’s Office operating budget by $179,500 (4/5 votes required); and
8) Approve and authorize the Chair to sign a budget transfer increasing revenue and expense appropriations within the Public Defenders’ Office operating budget by $84,500 (4/5 votes required).
FUNDING: AB109 District Attorney and Public Defender Subaccount
Body
DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
District Attorney - The current Case Management System (Damion) reached end of life in 2011. At the time, the District Attorney recognized the need for a new case management system, but also recognized the cost associated with it made purchasing a new system cost prohibitive. Damion was in the process of coming out with a new product, JWorks. The District Attorney joined the JWorks consortium and participated in suggesting features and beta tested JWorks. Unfortunately, the JWorks project was not progressing quickly enough and the consortium fell apart. Years later, after several reboots, JWorks was completed. Ultimately, the District Attorney decided not to upgrade to JWorks as the features that were addressed in the consortium were not implemented, namely in-court functionality.
The District Attorney created a web-based supplement (Gabriel) that provided relief from Damion’s shortfalls. While Damion remained stagnant, the Gabriel project proved to be an extremely valuable investment and has carried the District Attorney’s Office through to present day. Unfortunately, as priorities shifted in 2016, the Gabriel Project has now reached end of life and is not cost effective to continue development with Damion as the backed.
System Review Team
A cross-functional team was formed comprised of representatives from the Chief Administrative Office Central Fiscal and Administrative Division, Information Technologies, and the District Attorney’s Office to prepare specifications containing detailed system specifications including hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training. The specifications also included compatibility and integration directly and through a CJIS (Central Justice Information System) with the Sheriff’s Office, Police Departments, Superior Court, Public Defender’s Office, and the Probation Department.
The cross-functional team received four in person demonstrations by the two vendors (two demonstrations each) that create District Attorney case management software, Journal Technologies, and Karpel Solutions. At these demonstrations, the vendors demonstrated their forward thinking and innovative case management software. These two software suites share most features, but there are a few unique features that make them stand out from one another.
Journal Technologies solution is called eProsecutor and the features that set it apart from their competition are:
• Completely configurable system framework allows each agency to configure specific workflows and business rules according to their processes.
• Calendar management, allowing inner office networking, and courtroom management.
• eSuite API facilitates easy interfacing with other agencies in the county.
Karpel Solutions’ software is called Prosecutor by Karpel (PBK) and the features that set it apart from their competition are:
• Statewide Data Sharing
• Dynamic Resolution Screen Control (All case information in one, non-scrolling screen)
• Automated workflow (Automatically walks users through steps to complete tasks)
• In court processing screen to update cases while in court
• A full case display with hyperlinks/access to witnesses, documents, case notes, etc
• 24-hour help desk
• Microsoft Azure Government Cloud
• Evidence tracking
• Automatically produce the PMT report for the VOCA grant
While eProsecutor and PBK share most of the same features, PBK is the only one which implements the required in-court functionality in a manner that is like Gabriel and will allow Attorneys to conduct business in court quickly and efficiently. PBK is also the only solution that adds Evidence tracking which would eliminate another one of the District Attorney’s custom-built software.
After these four demonstrations, the District Attorney and the CAO started developing an RFP. While compiling this RFP and researching the available case management systems available for District Attorney’s Offices, it became apparent that only PBK met the draft RFP’s requirements.
PBK has 23 Counties and two Cities in California in addition to many sites outside of California.
Public Defender’s Office-
The Public Defender currently operates from a case management system developed by our Information Technologies Department called ACES. The system functions at a high level but is relatively young in its development. The County has one primary developer / support staff assigned to the system with a backup developer. Continued development of the system will take staff time from the Public Defender’s office along with IT resources and could take years to reach the same functionality that the Karpel system provides.
On March 20, 2019 Karpel provided a two-hour demonstration of the Defender module which included Public Defender staff and the Information Technologies Department. The demonstration provided insight to staff on security, data sharing and workflows. The Defender module also displayed the same functionalities utilized in the Prosecutor module, which includes:
● Dynamic Resolution Screen Control (All case information in one, non-scrolling screen)
● Automated workflow (Automatically walks users through steps to complete tasks)
● In court processing screen to update cases while in court
● A full case display with hyperlinks/access to witnesses, documents, case notes, etc
● Investigator requests and assignments
● Streamlined workload and case management
● Comprehensive case management
Consistency/Fit with Organization’s Mission:
The Information Technologies Department looked at both systems from a different perspective. The Karpel system would replace three home-grown applications (ACES, Gabriel, E Subpoena) and one vendor system (Damion) with one vendor system consisting of two modules. The Karpel system would provide the County with:
A sustainable long term solution that would be supported by a vendor that has multiple California jurisdictions as clients (Merced, Sonoma and Nevada County use both modules):
• Reduce single point of failure in the event County staff retire;
• Karpel would be responsible for maintaining industry standards not only with regard to technology but also legislative changes that impact both offices;
• Data exchange and interfaces simplified with the use of current industry standards
• System security - logging of all events occurring within the system including case evidence discovery, all user actions, integration with ADFS, and granular security.
• System would function within current County infrastructure
• Reduce onsite resource data consumption
• Currently both modules are scheduled to go live April of 2019 in Nevada County
• Off the shelf software. Karpel does not do change orders but instead provides a framework that you can customize to user experience
• Implementation for both systems is 90-120 days.
• Training material is well documented and available throughout the system
• Allow IT Staff more time to develop the CJIS system and build interfaces with all County law enforcement agencies.
Cost Benefit Analysis - Anticipated Benefits:
• Industry standard technology
• Current security practices
• Single database to manage and support
• Training Support
• 24 hour system Support
• Vendor has resources for system longevity
• Utilization of cloud storage
• Data sharing (reduce redundant data entry)
ALTERNATIVES
Should the Board choose not to approve this request, the District Attorney’s Office would continue to manually enter data into two separate case management systems, which are both at the end of life. The Public Defender’s Office would continue to maintain its current systems.
Both offices will experience improved efficiencies and functionality from both in-court and management levels perspectives should this request be approved.
PRIOR BOARD ACTION
N/A
OTHER DEPARTMENT / AGENCY INVOLVEMENT
Information Technology
Procurement & Contracts
CAO RECOMMENDATION / COMMENTS
Approve as recommended, noting that the departments do not expect the future year maintenance costs to exceed the costs of licensing and support for the current systems.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
There is no change to Net County Cost for either department.
The initial estimated start-up costs of $414,000 to be covered by AB109 reimbursement.
On-going maintenance costs were not included in the budget transfers as they will be offset by reductions in current licensing fees and IT Programmer costs required for the existing case management systems.
The District Attorney’s FY 2018/19 recommended budget included $150,000 for the purchase of a case management system. The budget transfer amount of $179,500 plus the $150,000 already budgeted totals $329,500 and does not include the estimated annual maintenance costs of $57,000.
The Public Defender's budget transfer of $84,500 does not include the estimated annual maintenance cost of $11,200.
CLERK OF THE BOARD FOLLOW UP ACTIONS
Clerk of the Board to forward executed budget transfers to the Auditor/Controller for processing.
STRATEGIC PLAN COMPONENT
Infrastructure
CONTACT
Vern Pierson, District Attorney
Teri Monterosso, Public Defender