Commissioners sue judge to push through new court system

The Medina County commissioners filed a lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court asking the state's highest court to prohibit Medina County Domestic Relations Judge Mary Kovack from enforcing two orders that would bar the county from implementing a new case management system. In the writ of prohibition filed Aug. 29, attorneys for the commissioners said the county would be "irreparably harmed" if it defies two orders signed by Kovack and moves forward with plans to implement a new case management system or if it complies with Kovack's orders and doesn't provided the county's other judges with the new system they have requested. In a response emailed to The Gazette on Thursday, Kovack said the commissioners want to liberally spend taxpayer dollars. "After reading the complaint, I have come to the conclusion that this lawsuit is about money, taxpayer money, which the commissioners want to spend liberally, and which I believe should be spent more conservatively," Kovack wrote. "We are elected by the people, and they should know how their money is being spent." In the email, Kovack listed several expenses the county is discussing including spending $1.25 million for new software. This is in addition to $2.6 million for courthouse architects for a shared courthouse project, $38 million for a new courthouse and $1.6 million for a new prosecutor's office. "Not to mention the attorney's fees to bring and defend this lawsuit," she said. County Administrator Scott Miller has previously said the county needs one standardized case management system for its courts, not multiple systems used by different judges. Kovack said in July that she intended to continue to use CourtView Justice Solutions, informing the commissioners she wasn't going to change to a new system. The county is looking to contract with Tyler Technologies, based in Plano, Texas, for its Odyssey case management system. All of the judges with the exception of Kovack have said they will use Tyler's case management system, including Common Pleas judges Chris Collier and Joyce Kimbler, Probate/Juvenile Judge Kevin Dunn, and Clerk of Courts Dave Wadsworth. In a July 3 memo to Miller in support of switching to Tyler's Odyssey system, Collier and Kimbler said it would benefit to the court to move to the new system for several reasons. "Medina County has already chosen Tyler Technologies for their financial and payroll operations. Being able to select a case management system from the same software vendor will provide integration and some economy of scale between all of the various software packages," they wrote. "In addition, end users that have to access all of the software packages can have a consistent user interface. This will shorten training time and eliminate the need for users to learn two distinct software packages." Soon after, Miller asked the commissioners for permission to negotiate a contract with Tyler Technologies. As a result, Kovack issued two orders — the first prohibiting the commissioners and the clerk of court from using the fees collected from domestic relations court for the Odyssey system. The second ordered the county from expending any reserve funds for that case management system. In its filing, the commissioners said there is no feasible way to accurately identify which dollars come from domestic relations cases. The county has entered into a grant award agreement with the Ohio Supreme Court for $200,000 for the new software. The court awarded more than $2.9 million to 47 local court projects this year through the court's technology grant funding program. Case management upgrades and security improvements are among the local technology projects selected to receive the funding through the Ohio Courts Technology Initiative.