Vermont judiciary details IT upgrades, warns civil-violation fee decline leaves a multi‑million-dollar gap

Marsha Shells, chief technology innovation officer for the Vermont Judiciary, told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on March 11 that the judiciary has modernized court technology statewide but now faces a recurring funding shortfall.

"We accomplished a lot with 26 people," Shells said, describing the IT team that supports enterprise applications, infrastructure, help desk and training for the state court system. Shells outlined upgrades including an enterprise case management system (Enterprise Justice, formerly Odyssey), e‑filing, a Vermont Digital Evidence Portal (VDEP) for video and audio evidence, a business intelligence environment (Microsoft SQL Server / Power BI / Azure), and a newly implemented independent statewide network providing "triple redundancy" at courthouses.

Terry Corson, state court administrator, framed the technology work in court operations history and pandemic response. Corson said remote‑hearing capabilities introduced during the COVID‑19 pandemic — previously limited to telephone calls — are now in every courtroom and have expanded the judiciary’s reliance on IT.

Why it matters: Judiciary leaders said the special technology fund created by the legislature in 2007 no longer produces enough revenue to sustain the ongoing costs of those systems. Shells and Greg Mozeman, chief of finance and…