Action 16.
Regular Board of Supervisors Meeting
Court Administration
- Meeting Date:
- 02/23/2016
- Title:
- Award of RFP and Contract For a Remote Court Reporting System
- Submitted By:
- Regan Appelo, Court Administration
- Department:
- Court Administration
Presentation:
No A/V Presentation
Recommendation:
Approve
Document Signatures:
BOS Signature Required
# of ORIGINALS
Submitted for Signature:
Submitted for Signature:
0
NAME
of PRESENTER:
of PRESENTER:
Eric Silverberg
TITLE
of PRESENTER:
of PRESENTER:
Superior Court Administrator
Docket Number (If applicable):
Mandated Function?:
Federal or State Mandate
Source of Mandate
or Basis for Support?:
or Basis for Support?:
Information
Agenda Item Text:
Approve the award of Request for Proposal (RFP) 16-10-SUP-03 to Revotext, LLC, for a Remote Court Reporting System for the Superior Court for a one year period, with possible renewals for up to four (4) additional one (1) year terms.
Background:
RFP No. 16-10-SUP-03 was released on September, 2015 for the purpose of securing a vendor to provide Arizona Certified Court Reporters to appear in various Superior Court courtroom locations remotely through the use of internet technology. The solicitation was advertised in the Arizona Range News and posted on the Public Purchase website. E-mail notifications were also sent out to potential providers. One response was received prior to the solicitation closing date of November 17, 2015 at 4:00 p.m. An evaluation panel consisting of representatives from Cochise County Superior Court, County Health and IT Departments evaluated the submittal and determined that the submittal was reasonable.
During last year’s budget process, the court secured BOS approval and 31K in additional funding to move forward with a pilot of a Remote Court Reporting System. Following the good news of this approval, we inquired of Procurement staff how we should move forward. It was their strong recommendation to proceed with a formal RFP process to ensure that we are able to solicit and consider other qualified bidders willing and able to provide this service, rather than execute a sole source procurement.
We are pleased to be embarking on this exciting project to implement a new approach to create a record of proceedings. The court is required by rule and statute with the creation of a record. Statute and rule specify the means by which a record may be created and when the attendance of a certified court reporter is required. Historically, the court was able to meet these requirements primarily through the use of staff court reporters. We supplemented staff reporters through digital recording where permitted by rule and the occasional use of per diem reporters to cover extended absences. This triad of methods met our mandate in a predictable cost-effective manner. Unfortunately, for several reasons this is no longer the case. We can no longer meet our mandate to create a record. We believe that by adding a fourth method to our service delivery mix, the court will have the ability to better manage and control costs.
This reporter shortage problem began a couple years ago, as the court began to experience retirements. Two of our six reporters retired in early 2014. We have had difficulties filling the vacancies and believe that we will continue to experience challenges. We now have 4.4 FTES out of the needed six and have been as low as 2.8 FTEs. Of the 4.4 FTES, 1.6 are already ASRS retirees. All of our per diem reporters are retired reporters from Pima County. This is a national problem which seems to be particularly acute in Arizona. Fewer reporters are opting for a career in courts, opting for close captioning and related work. As the current batch of reporters retires, it is certain that technology will need to fill the void.
The court has responded aggressively to this challenge. When permitted by statute and rule, we have relied more heavily upon digital recordings to create the record. We have brought in retired reporters primarily from Tucson as contractors (per diem) to help out. While these per diem reporters have provided the court with needed relief, it was our hope and intention that this more costly and difficult strategy would only be a stopgap until we filled the positions.
Given that we cannot fill all of our vacant positions, we must develop additional approaches to create the record. Through our research, the court become aware of another service approach that will potentially solve the court’s problem-remote court reporting. Revotext is a fairly new company based in Georgia that was formed by court reporters to help courts like ours that are unable to fulfill their reporting needs through local sourcing. They provide reporters through the internet using their technology to connect directly into the courtroom.
It is important to note that we now experience a new problem- days where the court was unable to find enough reporters to cover the events where a reporter was required by rule or statute. The court in many cases was forced to reschedule cases until a reporter becomes available. Since events come and go on court schedules, we often do not know until the last minute that we will have an available reporter. The necessity of rescheduling a case, only due to the unavailability of a reporter reminds all of us of the saying “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.”
Since, this technology application is quite new, we do not feel that court wide use is warranted until we conduct a full pilot to determine if this technology fulfills our expectations that it will function flawlessly and be cost effective. If the initial pilot in two Bisbee courtrooms demonstrates that both the technology and vendor are reliable enough to be used throughout the court, we expect to equip all six Superior Court courtrooms over fiscal years 17 and 18.
This reporter shortage has been challenging to staff. Additional administrative time has been allocated to manage the hiring and scheduling of per diem court reporters. We estimate that annually we devote an additional 35K of existing staff time to manage this new responsibility. This time was well spent. When we first started addressing this reporter shortfall in 2014, we believed that we would spend up to 70K more each year beyond what was budgeted for the court to fill six court reporter positions. Through aggressive management, not only did we not exceed our budget allocation, we have actually underspent by about 20% per year. We are frankly surprised and pleased to report that if current spending patterns hold then total savings if you include our projected over spending of 175K and our underspending of 275K, will total 450K over fiscal years 14,15 and 16.
Introducing this technology will allow us to more fully staff court events which will reduce unwanted continuances. With time, we hope to reduce the administrative time allocated to manage the court reporting function.
Fiscal Impact & Funding Sources:
In Superior Court’s FY15/16 budget request we asked for 31K in additional funds to initiate this project. At that time we believed this amount would only permit us to cover the initial install costs for one pilot courtroom. Through the RFP process, we learned that this funding will allow us to equip two courtrooms to be equipped with the technology this year. We would expect to equip the remaining four courtrooms over the next two years to help us backfill as our reporters retire.
Given our aggressive management of this function, we would expect to again underspend the budget overall for court reporting services. No additional funds are needed to implement this project.
During last year’s budget process, the court secured BOS approval and 31K in additional funding to move forward with a pilot of a Remote Court Reporting System. Following the good news of this approval, we inquired of Procurement staff how we should move forward. It was their strong recommendation to proceed with a formal RFP process to ensure that we are able to solicit and consider other qualified bidders willing and able to provide this service, rather than execute a sole source procurement.
We are pleased to be embarking on this exciting project to implement a new approach to create a record of proceedings. The court is required by rule and statute with the creation of a record. Statute and rule specify the means by which a record may be created and when the attendance of a certified court reporter is required. Historically, the court was able to meet these requirements primarily through the use of staff court reporters. We supplemented staff reporters through digital recording where permitted by rule and the occasional use of per diem reporters to cover extended absences. This triad of methods met our mandate in a predictable cost-effective manner. Unfortunately, for several reasons this is no longer the case. We can no longer meet our mandate to create a record. We believe that by adding a fourth method to our service delivery mix, the court will have the ability to better manage and control costs.
This reporter shortage problem began a couple years ago, as the court began to experience retirements. Two of our six reporters retired in early 2014. We have had difficulties filling the vacancies and believe that we will continue to experience challenges. We now have 4.4 FTES out of the needed six and have been as low as 2.8 FTEs. Of the 4.4 FTES, 1.6 are already ASRS retirees. All of our per diem reporters are retired reporters from Pima County. This is a national problem which seems to be particularly acute in Arizona. Fewer reporters are opting for a career in courts, opting for close captioning and related work. As the current batch of reporters retires, it is certain that technology will need to fill the void.
The court has responded aggressively to this challenge. When permitted by statute and rule, we have relied more heavily upon digital recordings to create the record. We have brought in retired reporters primarily from Tucson as contractors (per diem) to help out. While these per diem reporters have provided the court with needed relief, it was our hope and intention that this more costly and difficult strategy would only be a stopgap until we filled the positions.
Given that we cannot fill all of our vacant positions, we must develop additional approaches to create the record. Through our research, the court become aware of another service approach that will potentially solve the court’s problem-remote court reporting. Revotext is a fairly new company based in Georgia that was formed by court reporters to help courts like ours that are unable to fulfill their reporting needs through local sourcing. They provide reporters through the internet using their technology to connect directly into the courtroom.
It is important to note that we now experience a new problem- days where the court was unable to find enough reporters to cover the events where a reporter was required by rule or statute. The court in many cases was forced to reschedule cases until a reporter becomes available. Since events come and go on court schedules, we often do not know until the last minute that we will have an available reporter. The necessity of rescheduling a case, only due to the unavailability of a reporter reminds all of us of the saying “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.”
Since, this technology application is quite new, we do not feel that court wide use is warranted until we conduct a full pilot to determine if this technology fulfills our expectations that it will function flawlessly and be cost effective. If the initial pilot in two Bisbee courtrooms demonstrates that both the technology and vendor are reliable enough to be used throughout the court, we expect to equip all six Superior Court courtrooms over fiscal years 17 and 18.
This reporter shortage has been challenging to staff. Additional administrative time has been allocated to manage the hiring and scheduling of per diem court reporters. We estimate that annually we devote an additional 35K of existing staff time to manage this new responsibility. This time was well spent. When we first started addressing this reporter shortfall in 2014, we believed that we would spend up to 70K more each year beyond what was budgeted for the court to fill six court reporter positions. Through aggressive management, not only did we not exceed our budget allocation, we have actually underspent by about 20% per year. We are frankly surprised and pleased to report that if current spending patterns hold then total savings if you include our projected over spending of 175K and our underspending of 275K, will total 450K over fiscal years 14,15 and 16.
Introducing this technology will allow us to more fully staff court events which will reduce unwanted continuances. With time, we hope to reduce the administrative time allocated to manage the court reporting function.
Fiscal Impact & Funding Sources:
In Superior Court’s FY15/16 budget request we asked for 31K in additional funds to initiate this project. At that time we believed this amount would only permit us to cover the initial install costs for one pilot courtroom. Through the RFP process, we learned that this funding will allow us to equip two courtrooms to be equipped with the technology this year. We would expect to equip the remaining four courtrooms over the next two years to help us backfill as our reporters retire.
Given our aggressive management of this function, we would expect to again underspend the budget overall for court reporting services. No additional funds are needed to implement this project.
Department's Next Steps (if approved):
The next step will be to schedule the installation of the technology in the pilot courtrooms and to finalize the project implementation and monitoring schedule. It is our plan to have the project up and running within 60 days of BOS approval.
Impact of NOT Approving/Alternatives:
The impact of not approving this project will be continued difficulty finding certified reporters to cover events. This will lead to more continuances. The aging and retirements of the reporter workforce will just make this situation worse, both operationally and from a budget perspective.
To BOS Staff: Document Disposition/Follow-Up:
Copies of the contracts will be hand carried to the Clerk of the Board.