County faces unexpected court costs

And, It is an expense that every county in the state may also face.

The added expense is the result of the state’s inability to fund the Common Pleas Case Management System (CPCMS).

CPCMS allows counties to access the full breadth of court docket information for the entire state” according to the state website.

“The money should be there,” said Clarion County Common Pleas Judge Sara Seidle-Patton. “There is a judicial computer fee that is collected on every case that is filed and that is supposed to be used for exactly for managing the software program for the court system.

“The money has been diverted over the past few years and it is not there.”

Seidle-Patton said the county relies on the computer program daily.

Seidle-Patton said not only the county courts use the program but also dependent on it are the probation department and district attorney’s office.

Unless the funding is restored, the impact could be felt across the state.

“This will be a major impact on the prothonotary’s office in every county,” said Seidle-Patton. “This will have a major impact in every department in the criminal justice system.

“If the money is not restored we will have to find the money locally.”

The judge estimated the cost to the county would be about $200,000 for the software alone.

“Each county is going to have to find its own solution to running their case management,” explained Seidle-Patton. “This will not only be at a significant cost to each county but also somewhat of a nightmare to transfer all of that information from CPCMS to some other system.”

Seidle-Patton said if the funding is not restored in this budget cycle, the county would have about 15 months to make the change.

“We support the restoration of that money because they collected the money for this program and then used it somewhere else,” said Clarion Commissioner Ted Tharan.

The commissioners signed a letter of support for the restoration of funds to the CPCMS.