The County Administrator's Office manages and coordinates the integrated case management systems used by the District Attorney, Probation, and Public Defender departments, as well as county-wide justice systems such as the Justice Automated Warrant System and the All County Criminal Justice Information Network. Two staff are currently assigned to coordinate the current mainframe systems and to implement, with support from the Department of Information Technology, justice department staff, and outside vendors, migration from the mainframe to new web-based systems, including the associated interfaces between those systems and the Superior Court and local law enforcement agencies.   
  
The mainframe system and migration to modern justice case management systems are complex projects that involve coordination among not only the County's justice partners but also with the Superior Court and the 20+ local law enforcement agencies that file cases with the District Attorney's office and rely on the County's automated warrant system and justice data network. Each project is multifaceted, labor-intensive, and spans many months and, sometimes, years. For example, the typical tasks required to implement a complex data system include defining the requirements; soliciting and evaluating proposals; selecting a new system; negotiating a contract cost, scope of service, and implementation timeline; securing department subject matter experts and orientating them to the project; performing gap analysis, data conversion, and system configuration; defining business rules and work flow; testing, refining, and re-testing programming; training staff; and rolling out the new system and troubleshooting post-implementation issues. As the duration of these projects lengthens, the continued availability of key department subject matter experts diminishes, as only so much of their time can be devoted to automation projects and they, at some point, will get diverted onto primary mission duties. Likewise, if an automation project is allowed to languish, the County also risks losing vendor support, as vendors are generally paid only as progress is made. For these reasons, it is prudent to accomplish automation projects as rapidly as possible and avoid delays and loss of momentum.  
  
A programmer/analyst position was added to the County Administrator's Office in 2013 with partial funding from the AB 109 program. However, recruitment for a permanent employee was unsuccessful and, pending the results of a second recruitment, which is in progress, the unit has been relying on temporary agency help. Lacking sufficient human resources to complete the work necessary to implement and troubleshoot the new justice case management systems, the duration of the current projects -- the new District Attorney and Probation Case Management Systems -- has become protracted and the projects risk losing momentum. Staff have been unable to advance the projects rapidly due to a lack of personnel.   
  
Due to the critical need to implement these and other new justice systems, we urge the Board to approve the addition of a Senior Business Systems Analyst position and a second Information Systems Programmer/Analyst III position to the Law & Justice Systems Unit of the County Administrator's Office. The positions will supplement the project management, quality assurance / testing, and programming resources within the unit and enable to projects to progress more quickly. They will also provide back-up support for the Business Systems Manager when on vacation or sick leave. The County Administrator's Office has determined that the Senior Business Systems Analyst and Information Systems Programmer/Analyst III job classes will best meet the technical needs of the Unit going forward. With the advent of the new automated systems and the retirement of the mainframe systems, it is likely that the workload of the Law & Justice Systems Unit will require these additional resources indefinitely.

Lacking approval, the Office would be unable to recruit the necessary skills to assist with implementation and maintenance of the law and justice case management systems that are critical to the operation of the District Attorney, Probation, and Public Defender departments, as well as the Superior Court and local law enforcement agencies that depend on the resources of those systems.