New report puts Kane County computer upgrade at $12.6 million

The cost to revamp technology for Kane County’s judicial and public safety agencies may cost up to $12.6 million, according to a new report the county’s Information Technology Committee discussed Wednesday.

The full county board will see the report, prepared by Colorado-based URL Integration, next week.

County officials who use the current computer system on a daily basis, and others who may be using it in the near future, said the upgrade is needed so badly it’s worth usurping the checks and balances of the county’s normal contract approval process.

Not everyone is happy with the report. Circuit Court Clerk Deb Seyller will author a “minority report” that will lay out the flaws of what’s suggested in the presentation board members will see.

Seyller said some of the flaws involve not factoring in the technology needs of the civil and family courts. But she said none of the flaws are so fatal that the presentation shouldn’t move forward along with the needed technology upgrades.

“There are just some areas that I don’t agree with,” Seyller said. “There are gaps in there that say to do something, and they don’t justify it back to the financials that they are giving us in the report.”

Those financials say the true cost to the county to upgrade the system is really about $6.7 million. That’s because the county will already spend about $5.9 million over the next five years just to maintain the current, flawed computer system. Those flaws include case tracking so poor that employees must count cases resulting in probation by hand just to make sure the county is reimbursed what it’s truly owed by the state for those probation services.

County board member Cathy Hurlbut said the county board must agree on the technology upgrades and irreversibly lock in the funding for the project before a new county board and chairman are elected. Not doing so runs the risk of new leadership either killing the project or pushing the reset button to determine if the upgrade is really needed all over again, she said. Hurlbut is running to replace Seyller as the new circuit court clerk.

“This can’t be something that, when a new administration comes in, they can just say it isn’t a priority and take the funding away,” Hurlbut said.

To get everything lined up before the next election, Hurlbut said the county board should do away with the normal committee hearings on such an expense. Hurlbut wants to limit the debate to the county board’s Executive Committee, which she is a member of, and the full county board, to speed up the process.

“If this budget isn’t on board and ready to go by September of next year, this project isn’t going to be ready to go for a long time,” Hurlbut said.

County officials, including Chief Judge F. Keith Brown, agreed with that idea. The county board will debate all those suggestions next Tuesday. The next step would be seeking formal proposals from vendors who would put a more firm price tag on the project.