Supreme Court officials tell budget panel a data center electrical failure exposed single-point risks; $5 million–$7 million request proposed

Missouri Supreme Court budget officials told the House Budget Committee that an electrical event at one of the judiciary’s two data centers destroyed equipment and left the court system operating without ordinary technical redundancy.

Betsy Ledgerwood, clerk of the Supreme Court, said the event "lost all of the equipment in that data center" and that the loss reduced redundancy and slowed IT modernization. "We lost our everyday technical redundancy. 1, we're not moving as fast in our IT because we're all coming out of 1 place," she said.

The judiciary requested roughly $3,000,000 in general revenue to replace equipment and another roughly $2,000,000 in spending authority from the court automation fund to share costs with the judiciary. Ledgerwood told the committee the governor did not recommend the supplemental request and that the court had asked for partial funding in a prior supplemental.

The court also sought ongoing operations funding for case-management security and subscriptions, noting prior one-time ARPA funding had covered some large security bills; Ledgerwood said the total security contract bill was about $3.55 million in the current year and that a vendor invoice is increasing annually. Committee members pressed whether the security request was recurring; the court confirmed the vendor subscription is an ongoing cost.

Why it matters: the courts store sensitive personal information and the loss of redundancy raises both operational and confidentiality risks. The court asked the committee to consider a split funding approach between GR and court automation funds.

Committee action and next steps: committee members requested further detail on the breakdown of the security contract, the mix of maintenance versus security spending, and the timeline for replacing redundant equipment; no formal vote was taken at the hearing.