Senate Journal: Page 65: Wednesday, January 15, 1997

  3rd Day WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1997 65
  First--more cases are pouring into the courts and, once again, crime
  continues to
  take most of our attention and time. Indictable criminal cases shot up 20%
  last year, marking almost two decades of steady growth. For the first time
  ever, more than
  100,000 indictable criminal cases were filed in our courts in one year. The
  tremendous burden created by our high criminal caseload cannot beignored. It
  continues to drain valuable court resources.
  What can be done?

  First of all, I want to thank you for the help you've given us in the past.
  The
  additional judges, juvenile court staff, and other resources have taken the
  edge off a serious situation. We also appreciate your continued efforts to
  keep compensation
  competitive so that we can attract and retain talented people to handle the
  caseload. But problems remain.

  Our budget request for the next fiscal year, although a modest one, has been
  tailored to address our most pressing problems. Thedetails are included in
  the materials provided to you this morning. One request deserves your
  special attention --
  our request for more clerk of district court staff.
  Our clerks' offices are important for so many reasons. Litigants depend on
  them to
  get complete records of their cases to the judges. Our state and local
  governments depend on them to collect and distribute fines and fees. Crime
  victims depend on them
  to collect and disburse restitution payments. Custodial parents depend on
  them to collect and disburse child support payments. Businessesand property
  owners depend
  on them to keep track of liens. Everyone depends on them as the trusted
  gatekeepers for our justice system.

  I ask that you give this request special consideration.

  Second--there is one other problem you should know about. Most of our
  courthouses
  have run out of room for storing court records. This is a problem state
  government shares with the counties because they bear the responsibility to
  provide our courts
  with facilities. We can report some progress this year resulting from the
  use of CD-ROM and imaging systems to reproduce and store old courtrecords.
  One compact
  disc can store about five or six file cabinets full of records. But even
  though this is an effective way toaddress the records storage problem, it's
  only a short-term solution.
  It's like bailing water out of a boat that has a gaping hole in the bottom.
  Water keeps gushing in until the hole is plugged.

  The long-term solution will require electronic data management systems,
  commonly
  called EDMS. The applicability of EDMS to the courts has already been
  studied. Before committing scarce resources, we should study the cost of
  installing and
  operating EDMS. Our budget request includes a recommendation for such a
  study.
  The solutions I've mentioned are not simply answers to current problems;
  they will
  help us in the future as well. This brings meto our greatest success this
  year.
  When I addressed this assembly last year, we were eagerly awaiting the
  results of
  the first comprehensive study of our courts. The purpose of the study was to
  develop a long-range plan that would prepare our courts for the challenges
  we will face
  in the

Iowa General Assembly

Index: Senate Journal (77th General Assembly: Session 1)

© 1997 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

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