State courts tell Senate panel they need richer case-level data to measure performance

State Courts Administrator Eric McClure told the Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice that the court system needs more granular, case‑level data to calculate meaningful performance measures such as time to disposition and age of pending cases.

McClure told the committee that Florida’s current foundational workload reporting — the Summary Reporting System collected from clerks — reliably measures filings and dispositions but does not capture the “middle” of a case’s lifecycle. “We can tell you how many were filed and how many were disposed. But to get to that middle, meaty data, we have been working in partnership with the clerks of court on developing a uniform case reporting system,” McClure said.

The lack of event‑level data makes it difficult for the courts to respond to legislative questions about average time to resolution for specific case types, he said. McClure described several complementary systems that together support judges and administrators: clerks’ case maintenance systems, the Court Application Processing System for trial judges, the CTrack case management product used by all six district courts of appeal and the Supreme Court, and niche case management systems for problem‑solving dockets such as the Florida Drug Court Case Management System and the Florida Dependency Court Information System.

McClure said those systems are used to calculate operational metrics including clearance rates and to support budget and policy decisions, including the Supreme Court’s annual certification of judicial need. He explained the use of “case weights” that account for differing workloads among case types when forecasting judicial needs and allocating resources among the 20 judicial circuits.

As an example of using data for program oversight, McClure described problem‑solving (treatment) courts and an internal budgeting and accountability process: the Bridle (trial) Court Budget Commission allocates roughly $11.5 million in a special category for problem‑solving courts and requires annual reporting on participant counts and program outcomes. He said the office is moving toward more consistent performance indicators and certification to ensure fidelity to national standards.

McClure also outlined business controls used in court administration: time standards for invoice processing under state law, reconciliation of finance records, and other routine reporting shared with justice partners and the Legislature. He said the Supreme Court’s Judicial Management Council is working on qualitative improvements, while recent rule changes affecting civil case management took effect Jan. 1 to encourage earlier and more active judicial case management.

The committee did not take any formal votes on court data topics during McClure’s presentation. Committee members proceeded to the next agenda item after a short question period.