Overview of JUSTIS

The project created to replace the City's existing Court Management System is known as the Justice Tracking Information System, or JUSTIS. Begun in 1997 and conceptualized as a three-year project, ten years later JUSTIS is still in development, and will have cost more than $25.5 million in development and maintenance costs by the end of FY 2007-2008 in General Fund and grant monies.

Participating departments that will connect to JUSTIS include: Adult Probation, District Attorney, Police, Public Defender, Sheriff, Juvenile Probation, and Status of Women. JUSTIS will allow departments to share information with each other automatically, expediting individual department processes and resulting in a more efficient and effective criminal justice information system. The intent of the JUSTIS project is to connect the different case management systems at each of the criminal justice departments to a centralized hub, which will allow for the sharing of criminal justice information across departments. Additionally, the participating departments intend to consolidate their servers through a U.S. Department of Justice grant acquired for the JUSTIS project.

JUSTIS Background

In 1996 the Sheriff, Juvenile Probation, Superior Court, and Police Departments were all developing or implementing new case management systems. In a letter to Mayor Willie Brown, dated April 7, 1997, the Sheriff, Police, District Attorney, Public Defender, Superior Court, Adult Probation, and Juvenile Probation departments all requested an upgrade of the existing Court Management System.

In response to the departments' request, the City provided the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services with $925,000 for the 93intense, rapid development94¹ of a Court Management System replacement plan. The initial JUSTIS team, made up of Department of Telecommunication and Information Services staff, private consultants and Owens Information Systems staff (the group that supports the Court Management System), was formed in April 1997. The original Court Management System Replacement Committee had members from the departments that initiated the request to the Mayor, the Court Management System Policy Committee, the Committee on Information Technology, Department of Telecommunications and Information Services, and the Mayor's Criminal Justice Council, and the Superior Court. The City funded the JUSTIS project for the first time in 1998.

Reasons for JUSTIS

In 1998, the City's criminal justice departments began a process to upgrade their existing information sharing system, the Court Management System, as a result of twenty years of technological advancement that was overwhelming the system, making it inefficient and frustrating for Court Management System users. The Court Management System is an information sharing application on the Computer Assisted Bay Area Law Enforcement, or CABLE, system, which was developed in 1975.

By the end of the 1990's, most technological systems had moved to server-based technology while the Court Management System remained on mainframe-based technology. Additionally, the Court Management System programs used coding that was inflexible, limiting the Court Management System to few or no upgrades. And all of this is still true today: the Court Management System could not, and still cannot, communicate with other currently available technologies.

Only limited information can be drawn from the Court Management System in specific ways, as follows:

• A Court Management System user cannot look up an individual without the context of a case, which means that searching for a John Doe's history must be done on case-by-case basis;
  
  
• All information relating to a case - such as whether a protective order is in place or whether a given warrant-less search has expired - is not available on all screens, and the Court Management System user must remember to go back to various screens at the end of a session to check these items;
  
  
• Users often need information that the original program was not configured to provide as a simple query. When users need this information, they are required to request it directly from the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services;
  
  
• Only a few individuals at the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services are able to work with the Court Management System to retrieve any requested information, and that information is often only retrieved weeks after the initial request is submitted by a department;
  
  
• The data stored within each department is much more robust than the information the Court Management System is able to store, often including notes on each case;
  
  
• Data that the Court Management System does provide does not automatically populate departments' individual case management systems, and Court Management System users need to manually input such data in their departments' individual case management system.

Current Status

Currently, the JUSTIS project is primarily supporting implementation of individual case management systems at participating City departments. During its 1998 survey to determine the level of automation already present within participating City departments, the Court Management System Replacement Committee found that the City's criminal justice departments, with the exception of the District Attorney and Adult Probation, 93were obtaining or already had relatively modern equipment94. The departments involved with the JUSTIS project have attempted to develop their case management systems and the only completed JUSTIS projects have been individual departments' case management systems. Although individual departments have benefited from development of their case management systems, the existing Court Management System has not yet been replaced, as was originally envisioned for the JUSTIS project in 1997.

Currently, only the District Attorney, Public Defender, Adult Probation and Sheriff are ready to connect to the JUSTIS hub. The Sheriff's Department's Jail Management System was intended to be connected to the JUSTIS hub in February 2007 but that connection date has now been delayed until sometime during FY 2007-2008. The Superior Court is not yet ready to connect to the system and Juvenile Probation has requested to connect to the JUSTIS hub but has not taken formal action on the request. The Police Department will not be prepared to connect to the JUSTIS hub by the Fall of 2007, although the Department is in the process of upgrading its case management system. The Department on the Status of Women will not need to upgrade any of its technology in order to retrieve reports from the JUSTIS hub.

In addition to the hub, the scope of the JUSTIS project now includes server consolidation for participating City departments. The Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice obtained a grant in FY 2004-2005 for server consolidation but the servers were not purchased until FY 2007-2008, nearly three years later, and Memoranda of Understanding between the departments concerning the use and maintenance of these servers have not been written.

JUSTIS Governance Structure

Governance of the JUSTIS project was reorganized in 2003, assigning the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice as the project's executive sponsor and establishing a Technical Steering Committee. The JUSTIS project is overseen by the Governance Council, which is made up of the directors of the participating departments, a JUSTIS Technical Steering Committee and the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, serving as the executive sponsor. In addition to these groups, since 2003 IT Project Methods, a private consultant, has provided consulting services to both the JUSTIS project and to individual City departments implementing their respective case management systems.

The JUSTIS Governance Council

The JUSTIS Governance Council was originally authorized by the Board of Supervisors in December 2000 (Ordinance No. 309-00), with the following responsibilities:

• B7 Setting priorities and approving direction for project development and enhancements;
  
  
• B7 Reviewing, approving, and submitting annual and supplemental appropriations requests; and,
  
  
• B7 Approving vendor contracts.

The 2003 reorganization clarified the responsibility of the JUSTIS Governance Council for budget, policy, priority and other managerial decisions impacting the JUSTIS project. The Governance Council meets approximately every two months and is comprised of representatives from the San Francisco Superior Court, Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, District Attorney, Public Defender, Sheriff, Adult Probation, Police, Emergency Management, Juvenile Probation, Status of Women, and Telecommunications and Information Services Departments.

The Executive Sponsor

In 2003, the Governance Council approved the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice to serve as the executive sponsor. According to the Governance Council, the JUSTIS executive sponsor serves as the program director, responsible for the decisions needed to manage all ongoing and potential projects of the JUSTIS program. Responsibilities and authority include:

• Creating and implementing JUSTIS organizational structure;
  
  
• Setting priorities and negotiating resources for projects associated with the JUSTIS program;
  
  
• Directing project planning and implementation including selection and hiring of a project management entity in consultation with the Council;
  
  
• Conducting ongoing project review including decisions on whether to fund projects; and
  
  
• Ensuring top-level stakeholders' participation, awareness and understanding of overall program and individual projects.

However, the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice has had several directors and significant staff changes since 2003, resulting in no effective executive sponsor to provide project leadership.

The Technical Steering Committee

The Governance Council established a Technical Steering Committee in 2003, consisting of representatives from the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, Department of Telecommunications and Information Services, Committee on Information Technology, and the project consultant, IT Project Methods. The Technical Steering Committee makes technical and financial recommendations to the Governance Council, and to avoid conflicts in recommending project resources, voting members of the Governance Council are prohibited from participating in the Technical Steering Committee.

Problems in Implementing JUSTIS

Lack of Project Definition and Plan

JUSTIS Project Prior to 2003

The purpose of the JUSTIS project has not been clearly defined over the ten-year project span. According to the Government Council meeting minutes, the original JUSTIS project prior to 2003 was a dual system, including implementation of an integrated data warehouse and development of individual departments' case management systems. By 2002, only two departments, Adult Probation and the District Attorney's Office, were developing case management systems as part of JUSTIS. The JUSTIS project as a whole was in the process of mapping data in the legacy database, designing the new JUSTIS database, and planning the conversion to the new database. At the same time, JUSTIS project staff were in discussions with the Superior Court on the exchange of data between the Court's system and the new JUSTIS system. The Sheriff Department's Jail Management System and the Police Department's Records Management System were not formally part of JUSTIS.

As of 2002, the JUSTIS project lacked a strategic plan and criteria for determining the needs of the project as a whole and of the individual participating departments. According to November 2002 Governance Council meeting minutes, the original project scope was unrealistic, and that after expenditures of more than $6 million, even the short-range goals had not been attained. Further, the project lacked formal accounting of the JUSTIS project's budgeted and actual expenditures.

The JUSTIS Project Since 2003

After the 2003 reorganization, the JUSTIS project goals were clarified and ranked in order of importance. The goals included in rank order:

• Improving criminal justice system reporting and analysis capabilities;
  
  
• Integrating the criminal justice departments case management information;
  
  
• Improving access to information and the quality of information;
  
  
• Streamlining data entry and reuse;
  
  
• Improving workflow and communication; and
  
  
• Replacing the existing Court Management System.

The JUSTIS project retained the data warehouse structure but the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services redesigned the overall structure. As of 2003, the JUSTIS project consisted of:

• Implementing the Sheriff's Department's Jail Management System;
  
  
• Implementing and integrating the Police Department's Records Management System and other systems;
  
  
• Purchasing case management systems for the Public Defender's and District Attorney's Offices, and the Adult and Juvenile Probation Departments;
  
  
• Integrating the criminal justice departments' systems through a central hub;
  
  
• Maintaining a criminal justice database through a central warehouse; and
  
  
• Increasing various mapping, reporting and analytic capabilities.

The JUSTIS project became a master project with a series of subprojects. Each subproject was to include a project scope, budget, and timeline. Several of the subprojects, including the Sheriff's Jail Management System and the District Attorney's, Public Defender's and Adult Probation's case management systems, are largely completed although both the Adult Probation Department and District Attorney's Office have re-evaluated the use of their systems, as discussed below. Integration of the individual departments' case management systems into a central hub has continued to be delayed. The Department of Telecommunications and Information Services can not say definitively when the JUSTIS development project will be completed.

Inconsistent Leadership

Since its inception, the JUSTIS project has not had a single leader or project manager, whether with one of the participating criminal justice departments, IT Project Methods, the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, or the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services. At the JUSTIS project's inception, Court Management System Replacement Committee members were responsible for project design and definition. Although the JUSTIS Governance Council and the Committee on Information Technology subsequently replaced the Court Management System Replacement Committee in a leadership role on the JUSTIS project, these two governing bodies have provided inconsistent leadership, thus perpetuating a lack of foresight and oversight. Without one central leader or project manager to prepare for next steps, the project timeline has continued to extend indefinitely.

Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice

Although effective information technology projects require an executive sponsor who provides both leadership and accountability, as discussed in Section 2 of this report, the JUSTIS project, despite its size and cost, has lacked an effective sponsor. The Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, which was appointed executive sponsor in 2003, has changed directors four times in four years, contributing to their changing their role and delays in implementing JUSTIS. The Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice has also experienced significant changes in finance staff resulting in inadequate management of the JUSTIS project budget.

Role of the Department of Telecommunications and Information Systems

The Department of Telecommunications and Information Systems currently manages the JUSTIS budget. Going forward, Department of Telecommunications and Information Systems staff will also be responsible for constructing the hub and creating connections between individual departments' case management systems and the hub. The Department of Telecommunications and Information Systems also plans to support departmental case management system upgrades and maintenance that are part of JUSTIS.

Role of IT Project Methods

The JUSTIS project has lacked a single City project manager to direct the overall JUSTIS project and subprojects. In February 2003, the JUSTIS Governance Council hired IT Project Methods, a private technology consulting firm, to work with individual departments and the JUSTIS Governance Council, providing project management and consultant services. IT Project Methods is responsible for managing the JUSTIS project through completion of the JUSTIS hub, integration and related case management systems projects. Responsibilities include (a) supporting projects through the Technical Steering Committee, (b) providing the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services with project level budget tracking, (c) assisting with the implementation of a central hub, (d) helping Department of Telecommunications and Information Services staff with project management methods, and (e) other tasks. Overall, IT Project Methods has served as a consultant and project facilitator to the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services and the criminal justice departments. However, the consultant lacks the authority, accountability and incentives to complete the project of a City project manager.

Departments' Case Management Systems

Departments participating in JUSTIS have developed or upgraded case management systems at different times but must wait on other departments to fully activate their systems. Any delays in development of case management systems affect when JUSTIS can be fully implemented, because each department's case management system needs to be fully operational in order to connect with the JUSTIS hub, and the JUSTIS hub will not be fully operational until all of the criminal justice departments have connected their respective case management systems to the hub.

Changes in department directors, lack of internal leadership or expertise, and insufficient funding have prevented some of the participating departments from timely or complete development of their case management systems. The Adult Probation Department is renovating its case management system initially implemented in 2001, cTAG, because it was not properly implemented. After a successful development phase, however, cTAG suffers from underutilization because of inadequate implementation and training of Adult Probation staff. The Adult Probation Department is currently retraining its staff in use of cTAG and auditing data files to ensure accuracy and reliability.

Due to change in leadership, the District Attorney's Office had to re-evaluate their use of the case management system and engage in staff training to implement its use.

The Public Defender's Office has nearly completed its case management system and the Sheriff's Department has completed its case management system but until the hub is activated, these departments will not have active updated case management systems. Until the JUSTIS hub is fully operational, the Public Defender will continue to access Court Management System information through the existing method.

The participating criminal justice departments will have to wait until all departments are connected to the hub before the mainframe-based Court Management System can be deactivated. The Sheriff's Department's Jail Management System is completed, but it has not been used. The Department of Telecommunications and Information Services intends to use the Jail Management System as the first spoke to be connected to the JUSTIS hub.

The Police Department as a Central Agency

The Police Department has been active in the implementation of JUSTIS for four years, and in 2005 the U.S. Department of Justice awarded a grant to Police for the department's JUSTIS-related activities, including funds for hardware that would enable the department to be compatible with the JUSTIS hub. Presently, the Police Department does not have the technological capability to connect with the JUSTIS hub. Staff turnover has been a problem in the Police Department and is one factor in the department's ongoing inability to connect with the hub. Each of the current staff working on JUSTIS in Police has (a) been assigned to the implementation of JUSTIS for one year or less and (b) lacks the necessary technical expertise.

Police's continued failure to upgrade its existing case management system to a JUSTIS-compatible system will mean that, even once the JUSTIS hub is operational, the mainframe-based Court Management System will remain in active usage by all criminal justice departments.

Impact of Departmental Delays

Because technological advances are constantly occurring, future technological flexibility must be incorporated at all stages of a project on the scale of JUSTIS to avoid implementing information technology that will be outdated (and possibly obsolete) by the time of its completion. Although JUSTIS has yet to be fully implemented, departments' existing case management systems acquired over the past ten years need to be maintained and upgraded on an ongoing basis. As a result, departments have implemented case management systems, which were intended to be incorporated into the not-yet-deployed JUSTIS hub, and have a higher level of functionality and associated costs than they currently need, in order to be hub-read.

Delays in Integration to the JUSTIS Hub

With the development of a master project plan and subproject plans in 2003, the participating criminal justice departments, except for the Police Department, have moved forward in completing their case management systems. However, the connection of these individual department systems to the JUSTIS hub has continued to be delayed and thus many of the goals of the project, including information sharing, criminal justice data mapping, improved reporting and analysis, and decommissioning of the Court Management System, have not been met. This is significant because project expenditures through FY 2006-2007 were nearly $16.8 million.

After the hire of the project consultant, IT Project Methods, in February 2003, the JUSTIS Governance Council moved forward with a new project charter, defining project goals and priorities, and a master project plan, which was completed in September 2003. IT Project Methods and the Department of Telecommunications and Information Technology tested the feasibility of the integrated hub concept during the spring of 2004. According to the August 2004 Governance Council minutes, IT Project Methods expected the hub system to be implemented in FY 2004-2005.

Selecting a Vendor to Construct the Hub

However, because of the complexity of developing the hub, integrating case management systems of several departments, the Governance Council agreed in the fall of 2004 that an outside contractor would be hired The JUSTIS project staff began working with the City Attorney's Office to draft a Request for Proposal for a contractor in the spring of 2005, two years after the Governance Council reorganization. The vendor, PlanGraphics, Inc., was selected in June 2005. The actual contract with PlanGraphics was not completed and signed until April 2006, or ten months after selection of the contractor. Discussions between the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services and the City Attorney's Office regarding contract language were prolonged due to questions raised by the City Attorney's Office. Once the contract was signed in April 2006, the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services expected the hub development to be completed within nine months, or approximately December 2006. Since signing of the contract, PlanGraphics has worked on development of the hub engine, while the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services has worked with the Sheriff's Department's Jail Management System to prepare for the connection to the hub system. Although the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services had initially expected that the Sheriff's Department would be connected to the hub in February or March 2007, that connection date has now been delayed until sometime in FY 2007-2008.

Budget Management

JUSTIS implementation has been funded largely by the General Fund, appropriated in General City Responsibility. Responsibility for managing the JUSTIS budget has passed between the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services and the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. Originally, the JUSTIS budget was commingled with the Court Management System budget, overseen by the Court Management System Committee, then passed to the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice and finally to the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services. Throughout the ten-year history, problems have incurred in budget management, tracking grants and paying invoices.

The Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, as the executive sponsor, assumed responsibility for a consolidated JUSTIS project budget in FY 2004-2005 but was hampered by turnover in finance and budget staff. Further, the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice failed to implement a financial tracking system to track actual expenditures against the budget. Responsibility for day to day budget management was transferred to the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services in FY 2006-2007.

Operating and development costs have been combined in each year's budget, due to the expectation each year that the development phase was near completion with only operating costs remaining. Because components of the JUSTIS project were not completed in the expected timeframe, costs that were initially budgeted as "operating" were in fact "development".

From FY 1997-1998 through FY 2006-2007, approximately $22.5 million has been appropriated to the JUSTIS project, including (a) $15.6 million in General Fund monies, (b) $5.8 million from grant monies, and (c) $1.1 million from other sources. The Board of Supervisors appropriated an additional $3 million in General Fund monies for the JUSTIS project in FY 2007-2008 for programmers, case management and hub conduits, and maintenance, upgrades, and support for existing case management systems. Including the FY 2007-2008 appropriation, total appropriations to the JUSTIS project, beginning in FY 1997-1998, are approximately $25.5 million.

The JUSTIS project and budget have been open-ended, with neither a firm completion date or project budget. Although the JUSTIS hub connection and server consolidation are expected to be completed in FY 2007-2008, timelines to connect the departments' case management systems have not been met and full project implementation is not ensured in this fiscal year. The City has developed no plan (including projected timelines, budgets, management, and roles) to shift funding for JUSTIS from a finite development project, albeit with no estimated completion date, to an ongoing function, and continues to appropriate funds for JUSTIS in General City Responsibility rather than the respective City department budgets.

Conclusion

After more than ten years and a project budget of an estimated $25.5 million through FY 2006-2007, the JUSTIS project is still not complete. The JUSTIS project has lacked key components for successful information technology projects, including an executive sponsor, and a single project manager to oversee the full project. The 2003 reorganization of JUSTIS governance helped clarify the project goals and structures, moving the project toward a master plan rather than an ad hoc process. However, the appointment of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice as the executive sponsor has not been successful. The Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice has not provided the necessary project leadership due to high turnover in department executive and financial staff. Nor does JUSTIS have a single project manager to oversee the full project. All the JUSTIS project's consultant, IT Project Methods, provides project management services to the Governance Council and participating departments, the JUSTIS project has lacked a dedicated City project manager.

Recommendations

The Director of Telecommunications and Information Technology should:

3.1 Present a report to the Board of Supervisors prior to December 31, 2007, on the status of JUSTIS implementation, including project timelines and costs.

The Chair of the Committee on Information Technology should:

3.2 Develop policies and procedures governing interdepartmental projects, including responsibility for project and budget management.

3.3 Develop a policy to assign a dedicated project manager on large-scale projects that exceed some threshold amount, to be defined by the Committee on Information Technology.

Costs and Benefits

These recommendations offer an enhanced organizational structure to improve planning, project management, and increased accountability. With better planning, management - including budgetary oversight - and increased accountability by participants, projects will face fewer delays and cost overruns.

1 Replacement Plan for the San Francisco CABLE/Court Management System System. Final Report Draft 1.0. June 30, 1998.