As the lines grew at Saturday’s amnesty day event, Baton Rouge City Court employees had a tough time running simple searches through their case management system, adding to the lengthy backup, Judicial Administrator and Clerk of Court Lynn Maloy says.
About 1,000 to 1,500 people appeared at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center on Gus Young Avenue to take advantage of the opportunity to settle outstanding misdemeanor warrants and traffic tickets. But technical glitches prevented court and law enforcement officials from assisting more than the first 250 of them.
The line would have moved more quickly with an updated case management system, Maloy says. “The whole amnesty event on Saturday would have been a whole lot easier if we had the new system,” Maloy says.
A new records system to replace the decades-old one in use could cost an estimated $500,000 to $1.5 million to purchase, depending on optional features selected. An annual fee of $160,000 to $200,000 will be required to maintain and support it.
The state Legislature this session created the City Court Technology Fund, which allows the judges to impose a $10 fee in criminal, traffic and some civil cases to replace the obsolete system. The Baton Rouge judges agreed to set the fee at $5.
Attempts to secure that funding, however, have been stymied. The Metro Council refused to allow City Court judges to collect the $5 fee; Mayor Kip Holden’s administration also declined a request to set aside some city-parish funds to pay for it.
Maloy and other court officials are putting the finishing touches on a request for proposals to send in January to gauge the actual price of a new system in hopes of securing a Louisiana Supreme Court grant to fund the project.
City-Parish CAO William Daniel has said the entire parish should not foot the bill for a new case management system for Baton Rouge City Court. He notes, however, that the administration is awaiting word on the Supreme Court grant funding and is willing to support the additional case fee once a more concrete project proposal is drafted.
—Ryan Broussard
