Judiciary outlines cybersecurity upgrades, judges and tech funding needs

Keith Bybee, division manager for budget policy analysis, and Sarah Omanson, administrative director of courts, briefed the committee on Jan. 23 about Court Operations funding needs, cybersecurity upgrades funded with ARPA, and the judiciary’s request for new judges and reporters.

Bybee said the Judicial Department’s Court Technology Fund collections and a one‑time ARPA State Fiscal Recovery Fund appropriation have supported a multi‑year court technology modernization. He told the committee an estimated $19,900,000 in ARPA funds were used to reevaluate and upgrade court infrastructure and that the courts’ working cash balance and projected filings mean the Court Technology Fund had funds available for the investments.

Omanson said the modernization effort began in 2020 with a focus on cybersecurity after courts in other states were targeted. She told the committee the project has included two‑factor authentication, rollout of Office 365 and plans to build a state court network into county courthouses. “We started really focusing on cybersecurity,” she said, adding that the project aims to protect sensitive court records and that “we are putting in a network, an actual state court network in every courthouse throughout the state.”

The ARPA funding, Omanson said, has been fully obligated to contracts but work will continue into 2026; she estimated some major deployment work — wiring and on‑site hardware installations — is just beginning. She said Office 365 rollout is about 80% complete and that the courts have provided counties with options to use county machines to access court services in the cloud or to accept state‑provided machines on the state network.

Bybee outlined the courts’ staffing and budget context: the Judicial Department averaged about 372 authorized positions over five years, with personnel costs comprising roughly 70% of the FY2024 Court Operations budget. He noted the legislature shifted about 50.75 FTE for court technology from the Court Technology Fund to the general fund in a recent budget cycle.

On case management and vendor strategy, Omanson said Idaho currently uses Tyler’s Odyssey case management system (original RFP in 2013) and is preparing a request for information (RFI) to assess current vendor landscape and options for future systems. She said the courts are in year two of a five‑year contract with Tyler and that the RFI will not automatically lead to a vendor change but is intended to identify options.

The judiciary made several enhancement requests for fiscal 2026. Bybee said the Supreme Court requested judicial compensation changes (a statutory change) and the courts requested additional judicial resources including two district judges (one in the First Judicial District, Coeur d’Alene; one in the Seventh in Idaho Falls), two magistrate judges (Twin Falls and Bonneville/Idaho Falls) and two court reporters. Bybee said the judiciary’s compensation request totals about $10,200,000 while the governor included a 5% placeholder worth roughly $1,717,400 in the executive recommendation.

Omanson emphasized the operational consequences of high workloads and judicial recruitment challenges. She said it has been 35 years since Twin Falls received a new magistrate and that Twin Falls magistrates open about 1,773 cases on average each year, with judges sometimes handling 24 hearings weekly and two civil bench trials per day. She also warned of a shrinking pool of applicants with private civil practice experience, saying fewer applicants have the civil and private practice background that can speed resolution of complex civil and family matters.

Committee members asked for implementation details and hiring cost estimates. Omanson said some positions funded last year were filled at lower salary rates than requested and that courts continue to have difficulty hiring specialized IT staff; she agreed to provide estimates of what it would take to close hiring gaps and to return additional information on ARPA obligations and the expected timeline for completing infrastructure deployments.

No formal votes or policy decisions were taken; committee members requested follow‑up materials from the judiciary for the committee’s budget deliberations.