Creating a Paperless Municipal Court

Client: City of Beaverton (COB) Municipal Court (MC)

Project Statement:
The City of Beaverton (COB) Municipal Court (MC) was experiencing growing pains associated with its current business practices and the introduction of a new source of citations, Photo Radar. The Court had experienced an average increase of 19.5% in total cases filed and projected a conservative annual increase of 14%. It was estimated that Photo Radar citations were going to increase the Court's workload by an additional 14,000 to 21,000 citations a year. These volumes exceeded the capacity of the Municipal Court staff and their current processes and systems.

The Municipal Court staff felt they required additional resources and space to provide customers with an acceptable level of service. The workload volumes were stretching staff capacity, forcing them to frequently work overtime. The core processes were paper-driven. Computer systems support was limited and not being fully utilized because of a technology-fearful staff.

The City engaged CACI, Inc. (CACI) to conduct a Business Process Improvement (BPI) analysis and implementation plan for the Municipal Court. The goal of this effort was to understand the Municipal Court's business needs, model and simulate the "As Is" state, develop a "To Be" simulation model, and use the simulation model to sell the City Council the recommended solutions which will significantly improved the Municipal Court operation. The implementation plan addressed the costs, benefits, and actions associated with implementing the proposed solution.

CACI Services Involvement:
The CACI team consisted of one CACI Program Manager and one Certified Management Consultant.

SIMPROCESS was used to plan a phased migration from a traditional municipal court to a paperless court. The simulation model was also used to provide the financial justification, communication of the concept, and plan staffing for the revised operational procedures.

Deliverables:
CACI was contracted to study the "As Is" state, develop a "To Be" simulation model, and then use the simulation model to sell the City Council the recommended solutions.

Results:
As a result of the 1996 BPI analysis, CACI found the Municipal Court required a solution to:

• Provide users quick, easy, and reliable access to current documents
• Ensure document completeness and accuracy
• Address formal procedures and technologies

CACI recommended the implementation of a two-phased plan. Phase I - "Less Paper " would ready the Municipal Court for technology insertion by addressing quick hit improvement initiatives for benefits in:

• Manual records and filing facilities
• Automated information systems
• Office facilities
• Work flow
• Scheduling

The BPI Analysis projected the City's annual cost savings would be between $33,000 - $100,000 with the implementation of Phase I - "Less Paper". Benefits of Phase I include:

• Reduced citation processing (search, retrieval, docketing) by 9%
• Gain 0.6 Court Clerk FTE
• Increase the Court's capacity to process citations, including Photo Radar
• Ready the Court for new technology and processes

Phase II - "Paperless" implementation would save the City between $100,000 - $250,000 per year after the solution is firmly established. Benefits of the IDM system include:

• Reduced citation processing by 35%
• Gain 2.1 Court Clerk FTE
• Improved customer service by decreasing citation search and retrieval by 20% - 50%
• Increased citation processing (capture, retention, display, and printing of document images) capacity by 78%
• Eliminate risk of document loss through systematic document archival
• Reusable service delivery solution (intra-City or inter-government)

Phase III - "Less Paper" incremental savings would be addressed as "soft" savings since no "hard" data was collected for the Jan-97 implementation. This analysis would measure the Phase II - "Paperless" implementation and address the following key questions:

• What actually changed as a result of the consulting project and did it have an impact on the Municipal Court?
• Was the consulting project a good investment?
• Did the project drive key intangible measures, which are often difficult to quantify yet critical to the success of the Municipal Court?
• Does the Municipal Court require additional staff to support current and near future operations?

Future improvements include moving the Municipal Court WINCS online via the Internet. This Government-to-Citizen Internet link may include a site that gives both court information and the ability to pay fines by credit card or electronic check over the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without increasing staffing levels or hours of court operations. This use of the Internet is attractive given the likely increase in case volumes with the introduction of Photo Red Light or the addition of more Photo Radar Vans. An online court payment system will allow the MC to collect a higher percentage of fines faster, while saving money currently spent on processing "walk-in" defendants.

The Municipal Court has begun to investigate a courtroom videoconferencing link with jails and juvenile detention facilities in another area. Videoconferencing can potentially save courts the cost of on prisoner transportation. Undoubtedly, the Municipal Court will continue to use SIMPROCESS models to analyze, communicate, and measure City investments.

Demonstration Model

In order to view the demonstration model you must have SIMPROCESS installed on your computer and you must have a license. If you don’t have SIMPROCESS you may download a trial version.

You must save the demo model file by RIGHT CLICKING on the file below and select "Save Target As". Save the file to your computer. After you launch SIMPROCESS select File and Open. Then navigate to where you saved the demo file and select to open it.

Justice System Demonstration Model file (JusticeSystem.spm)

Additional demonstration models are stored on your computer in the default location: C:\ProgramFiles\SIMPROCESS\models\Demos

View the Justice System Demonstration Model with your web browser.