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Comptroller: data gaps delay updated weighted‑caseload study for district attorneys and public defenders
Summary
Comptroller officials told legislators that improvements in general sessions court data are needed before the office can update the weighted caseload study for district attorneys and public defenders; a separate update for state trial-court judges is already underway with AOC and a vendor.
Russell Moore, director of Research and Education Accountability in the Comptroller's office, told the Finance, Ways and Means Committee that updating the weighted caseload study for district attorneys and public defenders requires reliable general sessions court data from several large judicial districts. He said the last time weights were updated for DAs and PDs was 1999 and the last published study for that group was fiscal 2006.
Moore said the primary data gap comes from three large jurisdictions that have not implemented compatible software to feed general sessions court records into the centralized repository maintained by the Administrative Office of the Courts: Davidson, Shelby and Knox counties (Knox only missing civil case uploads). "Once that data is in place, then it would be time to update those weights," he said.
By contrast, Moore said the comptroller and the AOC have a contract in place to update weights for state trial-court judges. That work is underway: the AOC and a vendor will survey judges this year about how much time they spend on different case types and the comptroller expects to publish an updated trial-court weighted caseload study later this year or in early 2026.
Why it matters: weighted caseload studies are used to measure judicial and prosecutorial workload and to inform staffing and budget recommendations. Moore told members that the trial-court study should be completed once surveys and data are gathered, but the DA/PD updates are contingent on the large districts' adoption of compatible case-management software.
Committee members asked whether the comptroller's office had staff capacity to process the study once the data are available. Moore and Comptroller staff said the office is sufficiently staffed to apply updated weights and produce the report once reliable data and updated weights are available.
Background: the General Assembly appropriated funds in 2013 to update weights; those funds were used to update the trial-court judges' weights but general sessions data issues prevented updating the DA/PD weights at that time. Moore said that the weights should generally be updated every five to seven years to reflect changes in caseload complexity and court processes.
