Vote: approved

Item Text

16. EXCEPTION TO TECHNOLOGY FINANCE PROGRAM FOR COMPUTER EQUIPMENT PURCHASES Approve an exception to the Technology Finance Program (TFP) to allow the Superior Court Juvenile Court to purchase computer equipment through a grant approved by the State of Arizona Supreme Court Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) to utilize Court Improvement Funds for equipment purchases, which will permanently enhance the Juvenile Court’s ability to maintain and disseminate electronic information, provide more consistent in-house and community-based training, to replace outdated hardware. Total cost is estimated not-to-exceed $9,000. The Juvenile Court was approved by the AOC to utilize Court Improvement Funds for equipment purchases, which will permanently enhance the Juvenile Court’s ability to maintain and disseminate electronic information, provide more consistent in-house and community-based training, to replace outdated hardware. The requested four laptop computers would replace the three existing laptops currently utilized to facilitate the preliminary protective conferences. The fourth requested laptop would be utilized in our Community Services Unit (CSU) conference rooms. These computers would enhance the CSU’s ability to research existing case information, provide electronic documents to presenting parties and contact CSU team members in order to provide comprehensive child welfare information. In addition, this laptop could be utilized as in-house and community-based training instruments, and could be available to serve as back-ups. The two scanners would enhance the Juvenile Court’s ability to disseminate information electronically, process dependency petitions and provide department wide best practice child welfare information. In addition, the Court would begin to phase out the use of Faxination in deference to email options, which are faster, more efficient and offer more options for minimizing the use of paper files. Lastly, it is anticipated that the current Faxination system would be transferred to the Juvenile Court Department's JOI (Juvenile Offense Intake) Unit, where it could be utilized with greater effectiveness. These purchases would enhance the Juvenile Court ability to deliver effective services throughout multiple department units. (C-80-10-007-2-00)