It's hardly surprising that the state courts are having trouble developing a massive new computer system. California continues to build an information superhighway that is strewn with potholes.
In recent years, a computer system designed to track child support payments ran up tens of millions of dollars in cost overruns. So did an effort by the Department of Motor Vehicles to update its computerized operations.
Yet even when measured against those and other blunders, the snafu of the California courts stands out. Its eye-popping price tag, closing in on $2 billion and climbing, comes in the midst of a massive state budget crisis. The court's administration of this project has been shockingly inept.
As The Bee's Robert Lewis detailed in a report Sunday, the court failed in the most basic task – making a business case for the project. The administrative arm of the court apparently never put in writing what it was seeking to solve nor how the computer system being developed would solve the problem. Even now the cost estimates for the system and its reach – which courts will be included and which won't – remains murky.
Before more money is wasted, legislators and state court administrators must ask: Does the court system have the kind of specialized skills crucial to oversee a very large and complicated information technology project? In recent months, the courts finally went to the state information office for help, but they waited much too long.
The court's computer problems come just as the state court administrators are extending their authority over local courts. The power shift has produced predictable tensions. California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George, who heads the state courts, has become the target of increasingly pointed criticism from a growing cadre of angry and vocal local judges.
Business as usual will not do. The courts can no longer tolerate wasteful spending, poorly managed technology initiatives and bloated bureaucracies.
To quell all the speculation, Justice George should invite independent outside scrutiny. The Bureau of State Audits should be brought in to do a top-to-bottom review of the state court bureaucracy and a representative sample of county court systems as well. The state's chief technology officer should take over management of the court's computer efforts.
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