Committees approve judicial IT restructuring, guardianship portal and legacy support; reduce license funding

The Senate Committee on Finance and the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means approved several information-technology actions for the Nevada Judicial Branch on May 1, authorizing legacy-system contract staffing, continued development of an electronic guardianship portal and a partial separation of certain IT functions from the Office of the Chief Information Officer.

The committees accepted fiscal staff’s recommendation to fund the three decision units — E285, E301 and E302 — which together total roughly $765,830 over the 2025–27 biennium according to the closing packet. Fiscal staff said E285 provides contract staffing to maintain legacy systems while modernization and cloud migration proceed; E301 funds an electronic portal to improve oversight and reporting of guardianships; and E302 is a net increase to permit a partial operational separation from OCIO with associated reductions for services OCIO will no longer provide.

“On 03/20/2025 the judicial branch has decided to move forward with the separation as included in the executive branch,” Fiscal Analysis Division presenter Stephanie Day told the committees, while describing the new responsibilities, the ongoing costs for cyber security personnel and internet connection costs, and how the court plans to absorb some OCIO duties within existing staff.

Why it matters: The guardianship portal is designed to allow real-time uploads of financial and asset information and to provide earlier detection of financial mishandling or other issues in supervised guardianships. The OCIO separation will shift some technical responsibilities to the Judicial Branch and requires close coordination to maintain hosting, security and statewide network access.

License and maintenance funding scaled back

Separately, the committees approved a lower funding option for software and hardware licenses and maintenance contracts after fiscal staff reconciled invoice-level evidence provided by the Judicial Branch. The committees approved option B, which reduces general fund appropriations compared with the Executive Budget proposal.

Implementation and oversight

The committees authorized fiscal staff to make technical adjustments as necessary and requested reporting steps where relevant. The Judicial Branch confirmed that if separation from OCIO is approved, existing IT staff would absorb responsibilities without immediate increases in staffing levels; conversely, if the separation is not approved, no reduction in IT staffing is expected. The committees did not remove the Judicial Branch’s authority to request further adjustments through the usual budget or contingency processes if later needed.

Ending

The IT approvals are subject to technical adjustments and standard budget implementation steps; they will be folded into the Appropriations Act and the judicial budget accounts for the 2025–27 biennium.