Clallam County's superior court clerk urged commissioners Wednesday to give the office more time and clearer funding before moving all records to the state'maintained Odyssey document management system.

The clerk said her office brought in a third'party system for redundancy after lengthy Odyssey outages and that extracting and converting OnBase records will require coordination with the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), Tyler Technologies and the county's current OnBase vendor.

"I do not think a six-month time frame is enough time to successfully convert to a new system," the clerk said, noting the AOC had expressed surprise at the county's proposed schedule. She said past, informal estimates for conversion work to Tyler Technologies were "about $20,000," but cautioned the current vendor for OnBase may charge to package documents for transfer.

Why it matters: The conversion affects daily court operations — the clerk said OnBase outages left court staff without calendars and case records, and the county's third'party system allowed staff to continue public-facing services during outages. Commissioners and finance staff said the state'supported Odyssey product is used by many counties and would reduce ongoing county software maintenance costs, but they pressed the clerk for specifics on timing and the total conversion price.

The clerk also asked for clarification of a new $5 filing surcharge the county receives. She reported conflicting tallies: one internal remittance showed roughly $682 to $4,092 between July 27 and the end of September, while a county treasurer report appeared to show a separate figure of roughly $4,400 for a period in September. "I have no way of knowing how many cases are going to be filed each year — the first year is a guesstimate," she said, and asked staff to confirm which receipts are retained by the county and which are distributed to state funds.

What commissioners directed: County finance staff agreed to run and reconcile the remittance reports with the treasurer's office and to return with a clear, documented number of what the county keeps. Commissioners also asked the clerk and the county administrator to report back with an updated conversion timeline and cost estimate before committing to ending OnBase maintenance.

Context and next steps: Clerk staff said they have started an AOC ITG request and have asked Tyler for a conversion estimate; they said the AOC does not charge for its staff time but that vendors frequently do. The clerk urged any transition be phased and coordinated so the courts would not lose e-filing or judicial modules during a cutover. The clerk also asked for additional reporting and an explicit line for any Adobe Pro license and other IT requests to ensure related costs are captured in the IT/enterprise budget.

Sources: Remarks from the superior court clerk during the Clallam County budget review meeting, Nov. 1, 2023.