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Johnson County officials say Odyssey court-management transition slowed case processing, increased staff data work
Summary
Elected and court leaders told the Board of County Commissioners that the statewide move to the Odyssey case management system disrupted previously automated information transfers, increased manual data entry and reduced efficiency across the district attorney's office, district court and sheriff's office.
Johnson County leaders told the Board of County Commissioners the countywide transition to the Odyssey case management system has reduced efficiency, added manual data-entry work and slowed case processing across multiple offices.
The shift to Odyssey was ordered by the state Office of Judicial Administration; local offices said it replaced an older, more integrated system known as "GEMS." The change forced many previously automated exchanges of case information to be re-entered by staff, officials said, increasing workload and creating public processing delays.
District Attorney Steven Howe said the new system "created a really, what I scribe as a potential of a dumpster fire" and that his office lost automation that previously populated forms and notices. "For our paralegals ... it's 4 to 8 hours a week" of additional manual transfer work, he said, estimating the added time multiplied across thousands of cases.
Court officials said the district court completed the statewide unification to Odyssey and has worked with the Office of Judicial Administration to get integrations and upgrades. Laura Brewer, district court administrator, said judges and clerks have adapted but noted a reduced ability to extract historical data and run statewide performance metrics until the data cleanup and integrations are finished.
Chief Judge Draghi told the commissioners the county was near a six-month mark in the transition and expected improvements as users gain experience and as Odyssey upgrades are deployed. "Eventually, we will be in another version of Odyssey," Draghi said, adding that county staff had worked long hours during the rollout.
County budget staff and department leaders said they are tracking operational impacts and looking for software or integration improvements with Tyler/ODJ and local technology teams. Several officials asked the board to consider short-term resource options only after local efforts to reduce the data-entry burden are exhausted.
The commissioners pressed for a timetable and said they wanted follow-up reporting on whether the next Odyssey upgrade and new integrations reduce manual work and restore prior data reporting capabilities.
Ending: County officials said the transition has not stopped court business but has eroded operational efficiency; they committed to regular updates and to jointly exploring technical and staffing remedies if software fixes do not restore previous automation.
