MADISON, Wis. – Court officials in Wisconsin are concerned that Wisconsin’s court’s data management system could be on the chopping block if the governor’s proposed budget breaks up its funding mechanism. The popular court records site allows practically anyone with an interest to easily look up the criminal records of friends and neighbors.
Gov. Scott Walker, who seems to relish a fight with practically anyone, proposed a budget that would stop dedicated funding for the Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP), the data management system for the state courts system. Currently, state law grants the system $6 out of every $21.50 charged as part of the Justice Information System Surcharge included in most court filing fees.
Under the new proposal, all fee revenue would go to the Department of Administration (DOA), which would give the money to CCAP and a range of other programs. It would also cut CCAP’s funding by 10 percent. To me this smacks of more needless government control that is focusing on the short term versus keeping the long term interests and safety of the public in mind. An issue that is rampant in Washington first and foremost.
Jean Bousquet, CCAP spokeswoman, said the switch would allow DOA to move money to other programs in the future. If that happens, the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA) database, along with your access to it, would likely be near the top of the list of cuts. That’s the database used by millions of individuals every year, who depend on it for making safe decisions.
The WCCA database provides current information on all past and pending court cases in the Wisconsin circuit courts system and anyone with an Internet connection can access it. Bousquet said the system would likely deal with budget cuts through gradual moves. “We do pretty much instantaneous updates of court records now,” Bousquet said. “Maybe we would delay updating the database and do it nightly or daily. It’s just the concern that could be there if this goes through as written.”
Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson also indicated that CCAP itself could be jeopardized by the change and urged the Joint Finance Committee to keep the funding stream in place. “CCAP’s revenue sources need to remain stable and under the court’s authority.” said Abrahamson in testimony to the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee. “Without a strong, stable CCAP, the court system, indeed the entire justice system, cannot function in an effective and efficient manner.”
Cullen Werwie, a spokesperson for Governor Walker, said Abrahamson’s claims are “simply not true” and that the change was made because dedicated funding made the fee too difficult to administer. Werwie also said the 10 percent cut was in line with across the board department cuts and is needed to balance the state’s $3.6 billion budget deficit. Typical…sounds like more fiscal irresponsibility. Instead of trying to figure out exactly why there is a deficit, the politicians are simply making more “broad strokes” cuts in an unsustainable manner.
The WCCA site averages between 2 and 3 million hits a day. Those are huge numbers and a few state legislators have criticized the site’s openness, saying the information can be routinely abused. Former Democratic Rep. Marlin Schneider of Wisconsin Rapids introduced a bill in 2009 that would limit public access and remove records until a judgment has been rendered. The bill died at the end of the legislative session, but debate over the site continued in a special Legislative Council committee. That committee drafted a bill in March that would only clarify that expunged records should be removed from the site. This was an issue that I wrote about in an earlier article.
Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, has touted the site as providing citizens with essential information and said that any cutbacks to the WCCA site would have “significant consequences.”
“The bottom line is that it saves the state money overall, because the availability of this information online means the individual clerks of courts in different counties aren’t being constantly asked to provide it,” Lueders said. “If you make it less useful in any respect, you’re going to increase the burden on clerks of court.”
I don’t know about you, but this kind of thing gets my hackles up. Instead of trying to figure out where the deficit came from, the government is once again simply taking money from a very successful program and using it to pay off other areas that need addressing. There are no “cuts” being made here. It’s the same thing that’s been happening in Washington. The government uses a program, e.g. Social Security, to fund some other sink hole while ensuring both will be nothing but empty shells when all is said and done.
Anyway, if you need to do any public records searches in Wisconsin, you had better get on it before they decide to shut down everything all together. And of course, leave your comments below. I would love to know what others think about this.
