Judiciary presses for magistrate and district judges; continues ARPA‑funded court technology and cybersecurity upgrades

The Joint Finance Preparation Committee on Jan. 23 reviewed the Judicial Branch’s Court Operations budget, focusing on courthouse cybersecurity and infrastructure upgrades funded with federal ARPA dollars and requests for additional judges driven by population growth and heavy magistrate caseloads.

Budget analyst Keith Bybee told the committee the courts have carried significant one‑time ARPA investments to modernize court technology and to harden networks. The Judicial Branch received about $19.9 million in ARPA State Fiscal Recovery funds for court technology work; approximately $16 million of remaining obligations were included as a re‑appropriation in the maintenance bill, and the branch expects to continue spending that balance as contracted work proceeds. Bybee said court technology fund collections also rose from about $2.9 million in FY2023 to $3.4 million in FY2024, driven largely by filing fee activity.

Administrative Director Sarah Omanson described the technology program as a multi‑year effort that began in 2020 to improve cybersecurity, centralize court networks in each courthouse and roll out Microsoft 365 and other protections. “We realized that our infrastructure was preventing us from adequately securing the information that we thought we needed to secure,” Omanson said, adding that the branch has obligated ARPA funds and contracted the remaining work. She told the committee that Office 365 rollout is about 80% complete and that two‑factor authentication and other protections are being implemented; Omanson said the program remains a county‑state partnership and that some counties have chosen to keep county computers while accessing court systems through a protected cloud desktop.

The judiciary also asked for additional judges and court reporters to reduce backlog and travel burdens in growing districts. The branch requested two district judges (First and Seventh Judicial Districts) with court reporters and two magistrate judges (one in the Fifth Judicial District, Twin Falls; one in the Seventh, Idaho Falls). Bybee said the judiciary’s total ask for judicial compensation and new judges would require statutory action; the judiciary’s compensation request was described as $10.2 million in materials the branch circulated, while the governor’s budget included a 5% placeholder (about $1.7 million) for judicial compensation.

Omanson and Judiciary staff described operational reasons for the judge requests: magistrates in Twin Falls opened about 1,773 cases per judge in a standard work year and judges there sometimes hear up to 24 hearings in a week and two civil bench trials in a day. Twin Falls has not received a new magistrate in 35 years, the branch said. Bonneville County (Idaho Falls), covering ten counties and roughly 20,000 square miles, averages about 1,539 opened cases per magistrate and loses an estimated 67.5 judicial workdays per year to travel when judges are drawn from remote counties.

The panel discussed vendor and platform choices for case management. Omanson said the branch currently uses Tyler (Odyssey) under a multi‑year contract and plans to issue a request for information (RFI) to assess current market options and the landscape ahead of any long‑term decisions. She said the portal for attorneys to access case records is expected to go live within about 30 days.

Committee members asked about hiring for previously funded positions. Omanson said the branch had been able to hire some fiscal and processing staff at the amounts appropriated but that it had difficulty filling higher‑level HR and IT positions at the authorized pay levels; three of five IT positions remained unfilled and three data analysts left for higher paying jobs, she said. The branch offered to provide estimates of what pay adjustments would be needed to fill the remaining vacancies.

Omanson emphasized cybersecurity and data‑protection rationales for the ARPA program: the branch identified risks from cyberattacks on other states’ courts and sought to centralize network controls, enforce password and access policies, and isolate court systems from general county networks where necessary. She told the committee that counties had options — the state can provide protected desktops or counties can host court desktops on their own networks so long as court work is performed within the protected cloud environment.

The committee did not take a final funding vote at the hearing. Members asked for additional detail and the judiciary said it will provide follow‑up materials: a breakdown of ARPA obligations and contracting milestones, and estimates showing the pay adjustments required to hire remaining IT and HR staff.

Why this matters: the court technology project aims to protect sensitive court records statewide and the judge requests respond to caseload and travel pressures that affect timely access to justice. The requested judgeship additions and any statutory changes for judicial compensation would have budgetary and operational consequences for counties and the state.

The committee left the requests under consideration and asked for written follow‑up materials from the judiciary.