Bell County FY2011 Single-Year Discretionary Grant Supplement to the Final Progress Report

Transcription

1 Bell County FY2011 Single-Year Discretionary Grant Supplement to the Final Progress Report Background and Introduction Bell County was awarded a Single-Year Discretionary Grant from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission in FY2011 to create a web-based tool that would help counties demonstrate compliance with the Fair Defense Act and to better track implementation of the local indigent defense plan. The County contracted with a third party to create Fair Indigent Defense Online, known as FIDo. This system acts as a central hub or data collection point for dates, times, documents, and other information required by the Fair Defense Act or local indigent defense plan. This document contains responses to one question that is generally asked of all grant recipients in the final progress report, but has not yet been included in the Bell County final progress report to date. The responses also integrate the answers to questions asked by TIDC in a letter to Bell County on August 14, 2012 and additional questions asked by TIDC in an on November 9, 2012, which have not been asked or answered elsewhere in the progress report. Final Progress Report Question: Please indicate any significant factors, lessons learned, or major accomplishments to be included in our annual report of discretionary grants. Major Accomplishments The FIDo Discretionary Grant program has made several major accomplishments, and these are highlighted in this section. 1. Development and implementation of a web-based system to monitor indigent defendants and attorneys from request for counsel to payment of vouchers that follows the requirements of the Fair Defense Act and can be implemented in any county in Texas. Through the utilization of TIDC Discretionary Grant funds, Bell County was able to develop and implement an indigent defense system that allows users to manage attorney appointment wheels, screen arrestees for indigence, determine eligibility for court-appointed counsel, make attorney appointments, track attorney jail visits, and submit, approve, and pay attorney vouchers. In addition, all County Indigent Defense Plans have been updated to reflect the new processes developed (both FIDo processes and general business processes) as part of this program. Currently, all judges who hear criminal cases in Bell County in both the County and District Courts utilize FIDo. All financial screenings and appointments are made using the FIDo system, and all contemporary vouchers are submitted, approved, and paid using the system. There were appointments and vouchers in the pipeline before FIDo development that may still be pending or are now being paid, but all appointments that were made using the FIDo system require an electronic voucher. Coryell County currently uses FIDo for some Felony and Misdemeanor determinations of eligibility and attorney appointments. The Indigent Defense Coordinator (contact info later in the report) uses the 1 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

2 system to conduct screenings and make appointments for all felony arrestees. The County Judge and staff utilize the system to conduct screenings and make appointments for misdemeanors that have companion felony cases. The County hopes to transition to 100% utilization for screening and appointments soon, and their progress toward this goal improves each day. Coryell County, with the assistance of consultants, has trained the court appointed attorneys and provided them access to their Attorney Portal. The County has not implemented attorney fee vouchers at this time, but intends to do so when appropriate. Many elements of the FIDo system, for example a county s definition of indigence, are configurable and the system is web-based, which allows the Fair Indigent Defense Online (FIDo) system to be portable to any county in the state. Implementation of the system has already been initiated in Coryell County, as well as the 38 th Judicial District, which includes Uvalde, Medina, and Real Counties. The system is entirely web-based and exists in the cloud, which means it does not require server space within a county, nor is implementation limited because of the language in which it is written. It is currently maintained by Managing to Excellence at the direction of Bell County, but it requires no support from the Bell County IT department. The program could be configured to operate as an internal county system, but Bell County and the others who have implemented thus far have expressed preference for a web-based system. The current server environment is using CentOS 5.6 operating system with 2048 MB RAM and a 80 GB Hard Disk. The system is written using PHP and utilizes a MySQL database. The server resides in Dallas, Texas, in a state of the art secure data center. Regarding program and functional specifications, all that is required for a county to implement the system is a reliable connection to the internet, a web browser like Internet Explorer, and the capability to view PDF reports. A short period of time is required by developers outside of the county to configure and customize settings (such as indigence qualifiers) to the county s needs and in compliance with the indigence defense plan. This is a truly portable system that overcomes some of the issues that hampered expanded implementation of software systems in the past. In order for the system to perform its designed capabilities (how the program executes its functions), data must either be manually input into the system or consumed from another source. For example, arrest date and time can either be electronically entered into the FIDo system through an interface with the jail system, or it may be entered manually entered in the fields marked Arrest Date and Arrest Time. Specific to Bell County, the program has the capability to accept electronic data from court and jail systems, but the County made the decision not to implement this capability at this time for two reasons. First, during the initial development of the program, the jail announced it would change software systems. This implementation is underway and the possibility of a link between this new system and FIDo will be explored further in the future. Second, the County has been notified that the version of the court software current utilized in the Bell County will not be supported in the coming years. The County is evaluating its options on this front and may choose to address interconnectivity between a new court system and FIDo in the future. In order to demonstrate compliance with the Fair Defense Act, the following information should be entered into the FIDo system by either electronic or manual means: 2 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

3 1. Arrestee name 2. Arrest date 3. Arrest time 4. Magistration date 5. Magistration time 6. Request for Counsel date 7. Request for Counsel time 8. Financial screening information/questionnaires 9. Attorneys qualified to handle cases on each wheel 10. CLE/Board Certification for attorneys who are currently on the wheel Using these inputs, the FIDo system can: Calculate the time between arrest and magistration and report compliance with the FDA Calculate the time between request for counsel and appointment of counsel, taking into consideration whether the request occurred before, during, or after magistration and report compliance with the FDA Make recommendations on whether to appoint counsel for an arrestee Automatically appoint the next qualified attorney on a wheel for a particular offense Appoint a new case to an attorney who already acts as the attorney of record to an indigent defendant Generate notice of appointment to attorneys Track all appointments on all wheels for compliance with the FDA Permit vouchers to be created for cases once the appointment has been made Permit vouchers to be submitted to the judge hearing the case Permit judges to review, amend, and approve vouchers submitted by attorneys Interface with an electronic payment system to pay approved vouchers Allow attorneys to place themselves on hold from appointments for any/all wheels Allow the County to place attorneys on judicial hold from appointment for any/all wheels Monitor CLE submission on the part of attorneys qualified to take court-appointed cases Additional functionality and reports can be customized to any county s needs, but the list above represents the ability to demonstrate compliance with the FDA that is built into FIDo. In addition, changes in statute to the Fair Defense Act can be developed in one place and pushed to all counties that implement FIDo because it is currently a web-based system that exists in the cloud. As with any system, however, the number, quality, and accuracy or the outputs are dependent upon the quality and accuracy of information input into the system. As requested by TIDC, the utilization records have been provided in Table 1 on the following page. Each area represents a specific data requirement or function of the software, and the number provided is the record count that is detailed by each table. In other words, the table shows the number of total times that an area has been utilized in the FIDo system to date. Items of special interest are highlighted in yellow. 3 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

4 Table 1: Utilization Records Area Records Area Records attorney 110 hard_stop 5 attorney_appointment 8,681 i_file 77 attorney_appointment_offenses 7,571 jurisdiction 21 attorney_audit 498 language 11 attorney_override_reason 4 mental_health_status 5 attorney_status 6 offense 4,449 attorney_wheel 9 offense_attorney 8,830 attorney_wheel_offense 10 offense_level 11 county_attorney 42 override_reason 3 county_employee 96 override_reason_ineligible 8 county_finance_category 22 reset_reason 2 decision_reset 20 source_code 475 defendant 7,775 states 53 defendant_category 1 title_role 12 defendant_offense 13,493 training 36 defendant_offense_audit 9,409 training_audit 36 exclusion_reason 6 transition_queue 8,054 fq_assets 4,863 voucher 1,816 fq_auto 1,762 voucher_activity 7 fq_dependant 4,614 voucher_category 5 fq_employment 6,201 voucher_offense_details 5,015 fq_expense 15,012 voucher_offenses 2,352 fq_header 9,874 voucher_status 8 fq_income 3,705 voucher_type 20 fq_person 1,415 voucher_type_offense_level 92 gl_translate 475 Specific to this grant and the accomplishments in Bell County, development and implementation of this program allowed Bell County to accomplish the objectives laid out in the Statement of Grant Award, as follows in Table 2. In addition, Bell County has been able to reduce the jail population by combining the indigent defense and bond offices into a pretrial services department. The coordination of the two departments allows staff to routinely monitor the jail for those defendants who have not requested counsel and/or remain in jail when they may qualify for a PR bond. For example, Bell County data indicate that the number of cases added to the docket in the first quarters of 2010 and 2012 increased by about 600, but the jail population increased by less than 100 arrested for the same period. This represents a substantial savings to the County. Finally, standardized reports can easily be generated from the system to demonstrate the County s compliance with the FDA and the indigent defense plan. Screen shots of the system are attached at the end of this report. 4 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

5 Grant Objective Reduce time between arrest, magistration, decision on indigence and appointment Table 2: Statement of Grant Award Objectives and Accomplishments Prior to FIDo Since FIDo Prior to FIDo, times between arrest, magistration, and appointment decision were not consistently tracked. There was not a non-manual method of calculating or managing the compliance within these events. Also, arrest information was not usually captured as an important component for the compliance metrics for the process. FIDo records indicate that for those with both arrest and magistration dates and times entered in the system over the last two quarters, the median time from arrest to magistration was 9 hours, and over 98% of maigstrations were timely. These times meet the statutory requirement that those who are arrested appear before a magistrate within 48 hours of arrest. Automate attorney wheel and log any changes in appointment Automate attorney CLE reporting and record keeping Increase accuracy of attorney fee voucher by online completion of time and expenses Prior to FIDo, the attorney wheel was manually tracked on one legal sheet of paper for all county attorney wheels. The designee manually checked off each attorney in order of when the appointment was assigned. The designee would skip attorneys on the sheet of paper if the attorney was on hold or had a status change. Attorneys provided the indigent defense department with a paper copy of CLE course credits prior to CLE expiration date (attorney s birth month). Indigent defense would audit the list and requirements once per year. Attorneys provided paper vouchers upon disposition of the case. The majority of the vouchers were handwritten and often difficult to read. Categories for payments were not tied to State reporting requirements which resulted in quarterly review of all vouchers by the Auditor s Office. Vouchers were occasionally misplaced or lost or not transferred to the correct department for processing. The payment timeline could vary greatly and there were frequent lengthy delays in the payment of the voucher. Attorneys who are qualified to accept courtappointed counsel have their contact information entered into the FIDo system, along with their CLE expiration date and the levels of cases they are qualified to handle. Attorney appointments on indigent defense cases are generated by the system on a rotational basis. All appointments are trackable through the system, as are attorneys statuses on the wheel. Attorneys may put themselves on hold or they may be put on judicial hold. Attorneys on either type of hold will not receive appointments. Attorneys log into the FIDo attorney portal and enter CLE course info directly into the system. Additional improvements in tracking CLE will be developed as part of the Attorney Training, Mentoring, and Evaluation grant. During the course of representation or upon disposition of a case, attorneys enter time and/or fee data into the FIDo system based on the level of offense and type of disposition (plea/dismissal or trial). There were also several related benefits of the online voucher. First, the electronic vouchers provide attorneys with an online billing system something that attorneys have either purchased on their own or simply gone without. Second, attorneys submit vouchers much more timely through the FIDo attorney portal, with many vouchers submitted at the time of case disposition using laptops that have been installed into each courtroom or attorney s personal computers. Judges will often approve flat fee vouchers from the bench immediately or shortly after it is submitted. Analyses of FIDo data revealed that the median time to approval of vouchers was less than two days. The voucher line items are tied directly to GL codes that match the required Indigent Defense Expenditure Report, which will continue to expedite state reporting in the future. 5 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

6 Increase accuracy of logged attorney activities per case and monitoring capability Attorneys were previously required to interview their clients within a reasonable time. Attorneys enter line item detail in electronic vouchers that improves accuracy and monitoring capabilities. Attorneys may enter data for required jail visits, communication with client, court appearances, discovery, trial preparation, and pleas/dismissals. The attorney is able to enter the first jail visit directly into the system via their voucher which is sufficient for reporting to Pretrial Services. The Bell County Indigent Defense Plan now includes a required visit within 10 business days of appointment for in-custody clients. This first visit must be reported and is tracked by Pre-Trial Services. Failure to timely visit results in reminders and may include judicial removal from the list attorneys eligible for appointment. 2. Secured judicial, attorney, and other stakeholder support for county-wide changes In order to provide appropriate oversight and direction for the FIDo program, Bell County organized an oversight board that brought together the judges who would be impacted by the FIDo program. This was not only important for organizational purposes, but the oversight board also allowed the County to demonstrate commitment to the new processes. Stakeholders such as defense attorneys, pretrial services staff, and others were able to stay informed of the process and provide support for the system because of the judicial leadership. The judges have held these monthly meetings throughout the life of the FIDo discretionary grant and will continue to meet in the future. The meetings have become a great tool to foster communication about goals and objectives for indigent defense in Bell County. 3. Thorough analysis and rebuild of indigent processes in Bell County When Bell County set out to develop the FIDo system, it quickly became apparent that simply creating a web-based tool to automate existing practices would only be a partial solution. Instead, the County proceeded to thoroughly analyze indigent defense business practices to determine if efficiencies could be gained in decision-making processes, to reduce duplicate data entry in separate offices or departments, to identify paper processes that could be made electronic, and to identify manual processes that could be automated. This led to a rebuild of the indigent defense process and related revisions to the County s indigent defense plan. For example, following an assessment of how requests for counsel are processed, Pretrial Services staff were placed in the jail to quickly screen those who request counsel for indigence whether that request occurred before, during, or after magistration. This allows many arrested to be qualified for court-appointed counsel at the time of their request and allows those who do not initially request counsel to be monitored and screened at a later date if needed. Another significant change that has been implemented as part of the business analyses associated with FIDo development is the increased ability to track the requirements set forth in the indigent defense plan. Although the County previously required court-appointed attorneys to visit their clients in jail, there was not an easily accessible way to manage all appointments, in-custody clients, and attorney visits. The attorney portal in the FIDo system allows attorneys to enter in the dates of client visits, and a business 6 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

7 process was developed and included in the indigent defense plan to provide an escalated warning system to those attorneys who do not visit their clients. To date, although several attorneys have received letters from the County due to failure to visit an in-custody client, no attorney has been removed from the wheel for failure to visit appointed clients in jail likely due to the early warning that is provided to them. 4. Implementation of FIDo in Coryell County In addition to the implementation of FIDo in Bell County, the original Statement of Grant Award also proposed implementation in two surrounding counties Lampasas and Coryell and the system has been implemented in Coryell County. Training has been conducted for judges and their staff, and training will continue with an indigent defense coordinator who has been hired to start on October 1, His name is Michael Hull and, although he does not have a permanent office set up yet, mobile # is His is idc@coryellcounty.org. Until Mr. Hull is fully on-boarded, court staff will make indigent defense appointments using the FIDo system. Coryell County has also made business process changes as one part of FIDo implementation and has adopted many of the changes made by Bell County. For example, the County has decided to remove a standard of partial indigence from the indigent defense plan in favor of a 125% of the federal poverty level standard. Coryell County will make these and other changes to the indigent defense plan to reflect the new processes. Lampasas County decided to delay decision-making regarding FIDo implementation because the District Judge will retire at the end of his term in December The 27 th Judicial District shares jurisdiction in Bell County and has used the system in Bell County courts, so it appears likely that Lampasas County will be open to ongoing FIDo conversations in the future. 5. Dramatically improved transparency in the indigent defense system Prior to implementation of the FIDo system, there was no centralized data collection that would easily demonstrate Bell County s compliance with the Fair Defense Act and indigent defense plan. While information regarding magistration times, indigence qualifications, dates of appointment, attorney CLE, and voucher submissions and payments was available under the previous process, the data was stored in a variety of departments including the jail, clerks files, and the auditor s office. This made compliance difficult to demonstrate, but the FIDo system has greatly increased the transparency and, therefore, the accountability of the indigent defense system in the County. The FIDo reporting tools, as described above in point one, make this information immediately accessible from one centralized location. 6. Allows the County to better meet the needs of indigent defendants The improved data collection and monitoring associated with implementation of FIDo has also allowed Bell County to initiate additional programs that meet the needs of indigent defendants in the County. First, Bell County received a Discretionary Grant from the Commission to establish a mental health defense program. Like many other jurisdictions, Bell County has a significant portion of the jail population with mental health issues many of whom have had more than one arrest for relatively minor offenses such as criminal trespass. The FIDo system allows indigent defense staff to indicate in a defendant s information whether a mental health specialist attorney is required and to make an appointment of a qualified attorney. This program helps to separate a defendant s criminal justice issues, which can be 7 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

8 addressed by the mental health defense program, from their mental health issues, which can be addressed by community service providers or other mental health services outside of the defense program. The defense program also allows the County to better manage instances when those defendants may pick up additional charges and resolve them in an appropriate manner. The data collected and managed by FIDo has been very useful for this program, and additional FIDo development will continue to improve the coordinated representation of this population. FIDo development also lead directly to the implementation of the attorney Training, Mentoring, and Evaluation (TME) program. The increased wheel management capabilities of FIDo allowed the County to take a more proactive approach to the qualification of attorneys who may handle the higher offense levels. To do this, the County developed the TME program to provide ongoing training to attorneys on topics of particular relevance or interest, such as voir dire, pretrial motions, rules of evidence, and criminal procedure. Attorneys may also participate in the mentoring program that pairs more experienced attorneys with those who are new attorneys or have recently qualified to handle court-appointed cases. Finally, attorneys on the wheels will be evaluated utilizing a standardized set of measures to help the judiciary make informed decisions about the performance of the attorneys on the wheel and whether attorneys should be qualified for more complex cases, remain where they are, be placed on judicial hold, or be removed from the wheel. As with the mental health program, additional FIDo development will further the goals of the TME program and help to ensure that indigent defendants are represented by attorneys with the experience and knowledge required to handle those cases. Significant Factors Several significant factors contributed to the accomplishments listed above. These included: 1. Support of judiciary, commissioners, county staff, and defense bar. As noted above, broad-based support helped to push this project through to completion. Loss of support from any group of stakeholders could have derailed the development and implementation of FIDo, but the broad-based support for the program has ensured that the County is committed to the process. 2. Employees and FIDo users are willing to implement changes and are open to new processes. Change in county operations is never easy, but Bell County has been impressed with the level of acceptance with which the FIDo system has been embraced. For example, attorneys bring tablets and laptops into the courtrooms to complete vouchers, and judges even one District Judge who will retire at the end of this term have installed laptops in their courtrooms that specifically allow defense attorneys to access FIDo. Without the day-to-day users commitment to FIDo development and associated business process changes, it is very likely that the system would not have been successful in the County. 3. Bell County is small enough to have a manageable indigent defense system but large enough to have the technological capabilities to implement this type of system. We believe that one reason Bell County was successful in FIDo development was because it is a mediumsized county that has the number of indigent defendants necessary to make this type of investment worthwhile, but not so many that they would overwhelm the new system. Requests for counsel, indigence screenings, attorney appointments, and vouchers all entered the system at a rate that would allow FIDo 8 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

9 users to get comfortable with the system and use it routinely without being bombarded with large waves of new data each day. This is important because it allows the system to experience small growing pains and work through them as they arise. 4. Good working relationship between contractors and County Bell County contracted with Managing to Excellence Corporation (M2xc) to oversee, develop, and implement the project for the grant funded web based portable software. The close working relationship has been a project cornerstone because the County and contractors have enjoyed mutual trust among one another. The ability of a third party or outside group to be part of the analysis and implementation is invaluable as they can often cross departmental and political boundaries. The professional consultants do not have any specific objective and look at the process to make sure it meets the needs of the county. The third party is also critical for effective communication as they are more generally accepted by all as not having any specific objective other than making the situation better. Lessons Learned Like all large scale changes, Bell County has had several lessons learned throughout this process. Some of the most important are highlighted below. 1. Lesson One: Business Processes Matter As described above, although FIDo can automate many indigent defense processes, the decisions that feed into the system make a difference. The County decided that it did not want to simply make existing processes electronic and run the risk of simply speeding up a flawed process, but would undertake the important analysis work described above. 2. Lesson Two: Stakeholder Support is Essential Indigent defense involves many different departments including local law enforcement agencies, the county jail, the courts, commissioners, defense attorneys, clerks, and auditor among others. This often means that changes that appear to be simple are actually quite complex. Without the broad-based stakeholder support developed in Bell County through extensive meetings, ongoing communication, and phased implementation, it is unlikely that FIDo would have been as successful as it has been to date. 3. Lesson Three: Training is key Process changes ask people to take on new responsibilities, change their previous habits, and utilize new processes. The same is true for FIDo: the required skillsets change when the system is implemented. People who utilize FIDo need to learn new skills, and the county must evaluate any personnel changes that may be needed, reclassification of existing personnel, etc. Training should also be ongoing, as new contingencies will continue to arise that will require clarification of policies and preferred decision-making processes to be communicated to stakeholders and FIDo users. 4. Lesson Four: Implementation doesn t always go as planned Large system changes rarely, if ever, proceed as planned, so counties must be flexible enough to handle process and decision-making issues that are revealed when systems come under closer scrutiny. Flexibility 9 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

10 in implementation is often correlated to increases in the timing of build- and roll-out, and that was definitely true in Bell County. The decision, however, was made to take the time necessary to carefully think through issues that arose, rather than to sacrifice analysis for the sake of time. Consensus building was crucial to the successful implementation of change. As requested by TIDC, below in Table 3 is a list of the Activities as described in the original grant application, the planned solutions, and a description of whether the activity was implemented as followed, how, and/or why (not). Indications will be made for areas that have already been addressed or will be addressed later in the document. 5. Lesson Five: Full automation dependent on county-wide systems (jail, courts, etc.) Although the FIDo system has allowed the County to either automate or make electronic many of the indigent defense processes and paperwork, full automation from the time of arrest to the payment of voucher is dependent upon other system already deployed in the county. For example, arrest data including date, time, booking information, arresting agency, and complaint numbers are all entered manually into the FIDo system because the ability for the current jail to talk to FIDo has not yet been built into the system. The County is in the midst of implementing a new jail management system, and the hope is that this system will be able to populate more of this information directly into FIDo. The courts system has similar data that is entered manually into FIDo until the time at which the various systems can all work together to minimize duplicate data entry and reduce the risk of transpositions errors, blank fields, and the like. In other words, while FIDo does not consume arrest/booking/custody data from the jails or generate magistration forms the automatically capture magistration date/time, the system has fields for each of these pieces of data that could be further build out in the future. Until that time, the system depends on manual entry and serves as a centralized data collection point for FDA-related items. The data for payment of approved vouchers is currently interfaced into the county s accounts payable system. The duplication of information in the accounts payable system has been removed and has significantly reduced the amount of time and effort required to pay attorney vouchers. In conclusion, the development and implementation of the FIDo system in Bell County has created increased transparency and accountability in the indigent defense system. The County can more easily document compliance with the Fair Defense Act using the system on a variety of fronts. Requests for counsel and financial screening can be conducted, tracked, and monitored; appointments for counsel can be made; and payments for court-appointed counsel can be entered into the system and submitted to the auditor s office. The County can also manage the attorneys on the wheel with CLE and attorney holds entered through the attorney portal, as well as judicial holds, pending attorney applications, and inactive attorneys through the main FIDo system. The goal is to continue to build on these wins by integrating new functionality into FIDo through other Bell County grants from the Commission and other Bell County funds. 10 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

11 Table 3: Proposed Activities Described in Original Statement of Grant Award Local Plan/FDA req. Proposed Solution Implemented Solution The magistrate shall record the date and time that the person was first arrested and when the person was taken into custody. Meet 48 hour timeline for magistration The future system solution should capture arrest date and time from ileads or arresting agency data. FIDo contains fields to capture arrest date/time and magistration date/time. This data is currently entered manually into the system, as Bell County is implementing a new jail management software system. Once that system is fully implemented, the County will reexamine greater automation between the jail, magistration, and FIDo processes. Meet 24hr timeline for Defendants to be interviewed and qualified for court appointed attorney. Attorney Appointment done on a rotating basis for qualified attorneys on the appointed list. Indigent Defense will monitor Attorneys to ensure confirmation of receipt of appointment and contact made to client within 1 working day of appointment. Pretrial services personnel inserted into the Jail Process capturing indigence forms as part of booking/magistration. Automation of the Forms and Processes as part of the future system solution will reduce time consuming tasks to meet FDA guidelines and eliminate the need for additional staff to complete manual processes. The future system solution should allow maintenance of attorney qualifications to case types, rotate the attorney according to present business rules, and automatically create the next appointment based on those rules. Changes to the automated appointment would be logged to an audit file. The appointment would be ed/faxed/published on a portal once the appointment was finalized. Automation of the process and forms into an Attorney portal will allow confirmation of receipt and contact to be logged in that portal. Investigation of enabling integration will also be done. Pretrial Services personnel are present In both the Killeen and Bell County Jails. Many requests for counsel and screenings initiated prior to magistration, and staff are available to assist with requests for counsel both at the jail and at the Justice Complex. Once the screening is complete, the system automatically makes a recommendation on indigence for Pretrial Services staff. *See discussion above Attorneys are required to provide a valid address as part of their court-appointment application materials. Notifications of appointments are sent to this address and copied to Pretrial Services to ensure delivery of . It was determined that additional confirmation of receipt of appointment was not needed at this time. In addition, attorneys are informed that statute requires contact within one working day. The County has thus far focused the majority of its attention to visitation of those clients who remain in custody, as described above. 11 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

12 Indigent Defense will monitor attorneys to ensure that a Jail visit is made in person within 5 working days of appointment. Counsel appointed to represent a client in a criminal proceeding shall be paid a reasonable attorney fee for performing the service. No payment shall be made under this article until the form for itemizing the services performed is submitted to the judge presiding and the judge approves. Review of attorney fee vouchers by Judges. If the judge disapproves the requested amount of payment, the judge shall make written findings stating the amount of payment that the judge approves, and each reason for approving the amount different from the requested amount. Attorneys must be qualified to be on the respective lists, prove CLE credits and follow rules for appointment or removal. Automation of the process to allow attorney self-logging of Jail visits into the attorney portal of the proposed system will allow automated tracking of compliance. Required Jail visitation logs can be used to validate any discrepancies on an exception basis. Automation of time and effort logged against a case by way of an Attorney Billing solution would improve the legibility and accuracy of capture, and also allow cross checking of attorney time on multiple cases to ensure no duplication of charges. The compilation of case activity, visitations, experts etc within the proposed system would allow Judges to rapidly assess the accuracy of the claim and speed the approval and reimbursement process. Automation of the approval of fee vouchers through the new system would also offer the ability for Judges to adjust approved fees with accompanying reasons logged against the change. These logged changes would be routed to appropriate persons for information and to document compliance. The development of the web solution should include an attorney performance and qualification module that would allow the monitoring of a dashboard style set of performance indicators (number of cases, average fees per case type, number of hours committed by case type, frequency of client contact, etc.) In addition the ability to capture CLE qualifications would be considered. Logging of inmate complaints would also be considered. The County has amended the indigent defense plan to require visitation of in-custody clients within 10 working days. Because of the jail s designated times for inmate access by defense counsel, the County determined that 10 days rather than 5 days was a reasonable time requirement for the initial interview. See above discussion for further detail on how this is monitored. The County has amended the indigent defense plan to provide a flat fee for pleas and dismissals, as well as an hourly rate for trials. See above for further discussion on voucher submission process. See above for further discussion on voucher review process. If the judge has questions or notes discrepancies in a voucher, it is sent back to the attorney to review. If the voucher amount is disapproved, the judge states the reason in the appropriate field on the voucher. The voucher is edited, approved by the judge as edited, and forwarded for payment. FIDo currently displays each attorney s CLE expiration date and allows attorney to enter in CLE credits earned during the year. Logging of inmate complaints is currently under development as a part of the TME grant. 12 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

13 Ability to meet 24 hour deadlines for inmates from Killeen/Harker Heights jails. Annual Reporting case numbers, and break out of expenses: attorneys fees, investigation, etc. Monitoring of the overall process. Investing in addition Pretrial headcount to support the Magistration process in Killeen and Harker Heights will allow > 200 inmates per year to be released on Personal Bond prior to transportation, thus removing housing and transportation costs for all departments. The accessibility of the web-solution within these Jails will allow more rapid completion of assessments, improved service to indigents and more rapid appointment of counsel. Within the implementation of an attorney billing solution that is flexible enough to capture the correct level of detail for each attorney voucher and case type, the data can then be mapped to automate the yearly reporting from the proposed system and/or fed to any General ledger system. The development of a KPI or management portal would be useful. Example information that could be presented on this portal could include: Number of new cases with court appointed atty Average days from magistration to court appearance Number of cases out of compliance with atty visitation rule Cases per Attorney per case type rolling 6 months Number of inmate complaints per attorney Total billings per month per attorneys by case type Average billing per case type per attorney Average cost per case type with list of major outlier (Top 5 most and least expensive) Each of these would require some additional data to be captured or indexed during the process; but would allow a more effective assessment of process. Pretrial services staff are installed in the Killeen jail and are able to conduct financial screenings and issue PR bonds prior to transport to Bell County jail. See above for description of links between vouchers and GL. FIDo has a series of report built into a Reporting tab that allow for ongoing monitoring of the indigent defense system. See screen shots attached for examples of these reports. 13 P a g e B e l l C o u n t y F i n a l F i d o R e p o r t

14 County Portal: Arrest to Voucher

15 View Defendants

16 Add a New Defendant

17 Add an Offense

18 Add a Financial Questionnaire

19 Signed Financial Questionnaire

20 Work Queue

21 Eligibility Determination

22 Transition Queue

23 Appoint an Attorney

24 Order Appointing Attorney

25 All Attorney Appointments

26 View Vouchers

27 Attorney Portal

28 Attorney Appointments

29 Submit a Voucher

30 Submit a Voucher

31 Submit a Voucher

32 Attorney Vouchers

33 Add CLE

34 Change Availability

35 Judge s Portal

36 Voucher Queue

37 Voucher Detail

38 View Appointments

39 View Attorneys

40 County Portal: Attorney Management and Admin

41 Attorney List

42 Edit an Attorney

43 FIDo Reports

44 FIDo Reports: Version 1 These are the first attempts at reports for FIDo. Some changes have been made to reports and others are still under development, as will be noted in FIDo Reports: Version2

45 Attorney Appointment Listing

46 FQ Indigency Denial Listing

47 Days to Appoint This report is being completely overhauled in the second version of FIDo grants. The new reports will display timely and untimely magistrations for each arresting agency in both table and graph form. Similar reports are under development for the number of working days from request to appointment.

48 Attorney Wheel by Wheel

49 CLE Expiration Date Listing

50 In Custody with No Attorney Visit

51 Summary Payable by Attorney This report is being further developed as part of the new FID grant reports. It will provide a comprehensive listing that can be filtered rather than require the user to enter an attorney name and batch date.

52 Attorney Portal Visit Report

53 Attorney Visitation Compliance

54 FQ Listing

55 Offense Report by Court

56 Magistration Exception

57 No Arrest Date/Time

58 MH Attorney Required Active Cases

59 Defendant without a SID

60 Offense with No Cause Number

61 Non-Pending Vouchers

62 Non-Pending Voucher Billing Detail

63 Ready for Judicial Approval

64 No Cause Vouchers

65 FIDo Reports: Version 2 These are reports that are currently under development. Reports in the Sandbox instance displayed here may not contain complete data. The County Respectfully Requests that these reports remain internal until complete. They are provided to TIDC for informational purposes only.

66 Active Appointments A graph is currently being developed to visually depict the number of appointments per attorney

67 Appointments by Court

68 Appointments by Wheel

69 Attorney CLE Training Compliance

70 Attorney Wheel Attorney Audit A graph is currently being developed to visually depict the number of attorneys that are active or on any type of hold for each wheel

71 Attorney Wheel by Wheel

72 Jail Time Track This report is currently acting as a placeholder until the ability to track time in jail is fully realized

73 Time to Magistration

74 I File Report

75 Outstanding Vouchers A graph is currently being developed to visually depict the number of outstanding vouchers in each status (approved as modified, returned to attorney, etc.) by judge.

76 Submitted for Judicial Review

77 Voucher Report

78 Voucher Status by Judge Crosstab

79 County Portal: Attorney Management and Admin

80 Administration