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Prosecutor, IT and finance brief commissioners on forced switch from OnBase/ACT to CARPEL; county to seek conversion agreement
Summary
Prosecutor and IT staff told the board that Michigan'wide replacement of the ACT/JCT warrant and records system and phase-out of OnBase require Cass County to adopt CARPEL. The state or CARPEL covers initial installation and three years of basic fees; county faces uncertain conversion and ongoing license costs.
Prosecutor Fitts told the Cass County Board of Commissioners that the statewide replacement of ACT (Adult Case Tracking) and JCT (Juvenile Case Tracking), along with the planned phase-out of the OnBase records system, means the county must move to the CARPEL cloud platform.
"We really have no choice but to switch to CARPEL," Prosecutor Fitts said, describing the change as a state-level decision that will affect prosecutors across Michigan. Jody Nastich, the county IT lead, said CARPEL is cloud-based, the state covers the installation and the first three years of basic fees, and the county should expect additional conversion and customization costs during and after the implementation.
Officials emphasized operational constraints: the prosecutor's office relies on ACT/JCT to generate warrants, provide victim notifications, and populate criminal-history information used statewide. OnBase currently stores hundreds of thousands of documents for the county's prosecutor and court functions; converting those records into CARPEL will be a multi-month project and is likely to create additional upfront costs.
Finance director Jennifer (last name not specified in transcript) told commissioners the expected recurring county cost after the state-covered period is at least $14,775 annually but warned that custom conversions and integrations could raise that figure.
Commissioners asked about the number of CARPEL licenses (about 13, one per prosecutor's office user) and about security. Nastich said the CARPEL environment is a government-hosted secure cloud and that multiple backups and a state-county VPN would be used; she also said nothing is completely immune from hacking.
Timeline: staff expect installation work to begin in April and to go live in October, and the county will need to sign an agreement soon to secure a conversion slot.
The board voted by voice to move the CARPEL conversion item forward to the next regular meeting for formal action.
Why it matters: ACT/JCT and OnBase perform core functions for criminal processing and records. The forced migration will require IT time, an extended conversion project and an ongoing software subscription cost to the county.
