COUNTY NEWS
Pulaski staff describes paperless ‘office of the future’ Te movement toward electronic filing of
Te Pulaski County and Circuit Clerk's Office announced in September that Circuit Courts are well on the way to becoming pa- perless. Tis means that court documents for 2010 cases and beyond will be processed, used in court, and stored as electronic images rather than paper files. As of Labor Day 2010, eight Circuit Court
Divisions have gone paperless and the other nine Divisions will be paperless by the end of 2010. For most paper documents, this is ac- complished by scanning the document into case management software in the Clerk’s Imag- ing Department. Te Paperless Initiative is the capstone to five years of technological advance- ments to bring the Pulaski County Courthouse into the 21st century. Shortly after taking office, Pat O’Brien re-
alized that, while the outside world was em- bracing 21st century technology, the Circuit County Clerk's Office was decades behind. Antiquated technology and procedures caused filing errors, delays and led to an overall bad customer experience. O’Brien faced not only an office under Fed- eral Court monitoring, but an office drown- ing in paper. Te Clerk leases a 15,000 sq ft space from the state to house paper documents with an average of 1,000 boxes of new paper files sent to storage each year. Approximately 18,920 boxes were in the storage facility at the end of 2009 and the maximum storage capacity is 20,000 boxes. Te facility is expected to be at full capacity by the end of 2010. In light of this situation, going paperless was the only practical long term solution to meet the storage needs.
Madison 911: Continued from 26 >>>
Reynolds said the ETS Board is a state gov- ernmental agency that is funded in part by a cell phone tax, the rest from a federal grant from Arkansas Department of Emergency Manage- ment. she said. Te total cost was $106,901. In addition to pinpointing a caller’s exact lo- cation, the new system allows dispatchers the option of viewing a road map or aerial view of a caller’s location. Te aerial view allows the dispatcher to see
the caller’s surrounding environment. Tis is especially beneficial in a rural county such as
COUNTY LINES, FALL 2010
court documents (eFiling) by the Supreme Court provided the catalyst needed to take the Courthouse paperless. In 2009, the Clerk’s of- fice transitioned from an out of date court soft- ware system to new software called Contexte. It is a statewide system that will eventually connect all of the courts together throughout the state. Te Clerk’s office also purchased new imaging software called Docs Tools that allows each document to be bar coded for automatic indexing, allowing documents to be processed more quickly. Since March 2010, all new court case files have been stored only in digital for- mat.
What this means for those who use the courts is that all timely filed court documents for 2010 cases will be available to judges and attorneys in an electronic case file at the time of trial. Ac- cess to case documents can be controlled based on the type or sensitivity of the document and judges can make case entries electronically on the bench. Attorneys will be able to view the court documents from their laptops in the courtroom via the Courthouse WiFi network. Important for the future, the system will be compatible with electronic filing as established by the Arkansas Supreme Court, which is ex- pected to be rolled out sometime during 2011. As a result of going paperless, there will be an immediate savings to the County of approx- imately $20,000 in office supplies. Te office will also be able to shift personnel from manag- ing paper flow to verifying digital images. Staff can begin scanning old documents and reduce the 15,000 square feet of paper already in stor-
Madison County. “We get a lot of calls from hunters who are lost in the woods,” Reynolds said. “With the old system, there was little we could do to help them. With the new system our dispatchers can see any landmarks around the hunter and direct them to where they need to go.”
As someone who uses the system on nearly a daily basis, Madison County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Dispatcher Amy Bilyeu knows first- hand the benefits of the new technology. “Another thing we’re able to do is to crack
down on those prank 911 calls,” Bilyeu said. “A lot of pre-paid cell phones allow you to still call 911 even if they don’t have service. With the
age. Additionally, court clerks will operate more efficiently and reduce the time necessary to up- date court files.
Te successful launch of the Paperless Initia-
tive marks the culmination of an effort begun in 2005 to use technology to improve the efficien- cy of operations throughout the Clerk’s office, safeguard court and county information and provide better customer service to the public. Beginning with the introduction of email in 2005 and a website later that year, the pace of advancement has only quickened. Internal and external network capabilities have been com- pletely redesigned and continually upgraded. WiFi web access is now available in courtrooms and throughout the courthouse. All Clerk staff and all 17 Divisional Courts have new comput- ers. eRecording now allows real estate docu- ments to be submitted to the county recorder’s office electronically. Voters are now able to check voter registra- tion information and view a sample ballot online. Credit cards may be used to pay child support, fines, fees, and to purchase marriage licenses by the end of 2010. Customers will also be able to pay certain fees online. To ensure uninterrupted access to information, an offsite backup datacenter now assures the protection of vital documents. Te Pulaski County and Circuit Clerk's Of- fice has created a special area on their website that describes in detail the many technological advancements made within all departments of the Clerk's Office since 2005. To find out more about any of these technological advancements, visit their website:
www.pulaskiclerk.com.
old system, somebody may call us from one of these phones and we’d have no idea who it was. Now, we can see where they’re calling from, so it’s harder for them to make those calls anony- mously.” Bilyeu said other features include immedi- ate connections for emergency departments in other counties to facilitate more efficient com- munication between different agencies, and overall shorter handle times for each call, allow- ing emergency technicians to more quickly get to the scene.
–By Matt Shelnutt Te Madison County Record
and online at:
www.writeforarkansas.org 31
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