Clallam County weighs OnBase renewal and upgrade as staff urge keeping dual systems

Clallam County officials discussed whether to renew and upgrade the county’s OnBase document management subscription during a Board of County Commissioners work session on April 7, 2025.

County staff said the OnBase maintenance invoice for the next term is “just over $35,000,” and that public-agency subscription discounts reduce the county’s net payment to about $27,000 a year. Clerk staff also noted the county receives roughly $7,700 a year in user fees from outside subscribers — title companies, the public defender’s office and others — which reduces the net cost of maintaining OnBase to “a little over $20,000” annually.

The clerk’s office argued upgrading OnBase and retaining both OnBase and the statewide Odyssey DMS is prudent for records integrity and continuity. “Since our maintenance is due April 30, I’ve already submitted for the next term, and it was just over $35,000,” said Nikki, a clerk’s office staff member. She said OnBase provides e‑filing and a controlled copy of court records that helped the county continue operations during a statewide Odyssey outage in November. “Because we had our third party system, we were able to have access to our calendars or our records,” Nikki said.

Staff described technical and operational trade-offs rather than a simple cost decision. OnBase is the county’s primary document storage system, while Odyssey functions as the case-management system required by the state. Staff and a representative from the superior court reported problems when the two systems exchange information — delays, missing events and occasional script errors — and said those data flows can be “clunky and inefficient.” A superior-court representative present said some errors are human or training issues, and offered to accept training from the clerk’s office.

Commissioners and staff discussed options to manage upgrade costs. Staff said counterparts in another county offered remote help with an upgrade; the clerk’s office suggested reimbursing mileage or using payroll underspend to cover reimbursement for in‑person assistance, but stressed it would not accept free work without compensating the assisting county.

No formal action was recorded at the meeting. Commissioners directed staff to keep discussing upgrades and cross‑department training; staff said they will convene the criminal-justice partners and the county’s existing task-force structures to identify next steps and a timeline before deciding whether to consolidate systems.

The OnBase maintenance renewal remains on staff’s near-term agenda because the current license and maintenance term expires at the end of April.