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Commonwealth's Attorney seeks Justice Pro upgrade for Axon system and flags grant-funded victim-witness position
Summary
Clarissa, representing the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, described limits of the office's current Axon body-camera contract, sought an upgrade that would add transcription, redaction and a citizen portal, and cautioned that a victim-witness position is grant funded and could be lost if federal funding changes.
Clarissa, representing the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, briefed the Board of Supervisors on two related needs: expanding electronic-evidence transcription and preserving grant-funded victim-witness services.
Clarissa said the office currently uses Axon (the sheriff's office vendor) and had access to extra features under an earlier agreement. Axon told the office those extra features were beyond what the locality should have and said the office must upgrade to Justice Pro to retain transcription, redaction and the citizen-upload portal. Clarissa said the Justice Pro upgrade carried a $5,000 initial onboarding fee and the vendor initially quoted $12,000–$13,000 per year, but the vendor later offered a smaller tier priced roughly half that amount for offices with five or fewer attorneys.
"We were able to say, we don't have 10 attorneys…half the price of the 10 attorney level," Clarissa said, noting improved transcription capabilities (including Spanish and other languages) and the ability to transcribe jail calls and victim uploads.
On victim services, Clarissa reported that for fiscal year 2025 the office had served 223 victims (148 new) and eight witnesses (seven new). She warned the victim-witness position is primarily grant funded and could be at risk if federal funding were cut. She described the position as providing immediate-on-call assistance: "it's not unusual for me to get a phone call in the middle of the night and say, well, have you called Dawn?" Clarissa said the county would need an additional administrative assistant and likely more overtime if the grant-funded role disappeared.
No formal vote was taken. Clarissa asked the board to consider funding in the budget to sustain needed transcription capacity and to be mindful that the victim-witness position depends on grant funds.
