 You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. Coming up on Court to Court. You need to have a process that enhances the work of the officers for them to adopt it and for them to accept it. We have to know the big picture, the little picture, the politics, you know, and try to anticipate what's coming down the pike. The staff need to have information and that they need to be able to make their own decisions. And I want them to have the information, even though it's sometimes hard to handle. This is Court to Court, your connection to what's happening in the federal courts around the country, providing information and ideas that will enhance your job and how the courts function. Now with today's program, Michael Burney. Welcome to Court to Court, the Federal Judicial Center's educational magazine program for all court employees. Today we'll see how sophisticated technology makes a difference in the workplace, and we'll hear an extended discussion from several court unit managers about budget issues facing the judiciary. It's been said that information is power. If that's the case, then in today's world rapid access to the information and being able to interact with it are the touchstones of that power, and technology drives the means to deal with information. Of course, the speed with which technology changes is beyond anything anyone imagined in the past. Successful use of technology in the workplace doesn't happen just because the technology exists. At the U.S. Probation Office for the Southern District of Florida, the eight officers who supervise offenders on electronic monitoring, the EM officers, were the test group for a new, more sophisticated personal digital assistant, or PDA. Before I had this PDA, I worked out of a field book, which I'm sure most officers will remember, pages and pages and pages of documents and notes and scribbles everywhere. The EM officers needed a device to try and minimize what they carry, and that entails not only a casebook but forms a phone all the time to access the alerts they get. With those things, they became a little cumbersome. So we decided to try and find a way to make it less cumbersome. Now with the PDAs, all that is done on one simple device. While PDAs have been around for several years, they become more and more sophisticated with each new version. The one de Lestinaire uses functions as a pager to receive offender alerts from the electronic monitoring system. It's also a telephone. It also contains the probation office's offender database with all the relevant data about each offender. And of course it contains a calendar, which has advantages over the paper kind. I can set a schedule in place and it will automatically alert me. The book won't. Information can be copied either in the PDA, though that's somewhat tedious with the tiny keyboard, or in the officer's computer, and then copied from or to the PDA. The other advantage to the PDA is that while I'm at an offender's house talking to them, if they have a question, anything about their case information, I can look in the PDA, access that information and give it to them readily right then and there. The other bonus is that I have my phone system set up to where if somebody leaves me a message, it will automatically forward to my PDA because it is also a phone. Hello? Yes, Tom? All right, what you need to do is give me a call tomorrow. Officers spend a lot of time in the field checking with offenders, both at their places of employment and their homes. This PDA has a voice recorder, which can save time in the field. If I come up on a house, I know that only one individual lives there. I know their vehicle, and I see six vehicles in front of the house. At that point, I can make a tape recording or record at least the tag numbers and a memo to alert me to the fact that I need to check out what these six tags and cars belong to. In the past, DeLeste and Air would have had to sit there and write notes and so on and so forth. This is something that's very simple. I just record it. Simple, maybe, but not automatic. It takes a little doing it. There's a learning curve. I mean, you just don't simply plug it in and it works. You have to have staff that's willing to, you know, suffer a little bit and deal with that learning curve. And what's the key to getting staff to be willing to suffer a little? I think that the applications have to be of benefit to the end users. You can't be selling something that has no value to people. Our more successful applications are those that people enjoy and support because they understand intuitively, this is good. This helps me do my job better. Still, introducing new technology involves change, sometimes not eagerly anticipated. Technology always brings a little fear. We had some officers who embraced it quickly and wanted to get it as soon as possible and others didn't feel comfortable with it and honestly didn't want it. They said, you know, I'm used to my simple phone. I like carrying my casebook. I feel comfortable with it. Just leave me alone. Kind of was their attitude. Changes make you nervous. People usually don't like change. So at first I was apprehensive in receiving it and learning how to use it. We took it slowly. We put the technology out there. We didn't force it upon anybody at first because we always thought and still do think that it'll sell itself. Things are working all right. I'm getting my alerts on time. I'm not getting any more alerts from Abe's cases. We gave them the training. We showed them what it can and cannot do. And during the monthly EM officer meetings, we would, and I would by design ask someone to come up and speak about what they learned about their PDAs. And that kind of encouraged officers as well. Oh, how did you do that? Show me this. It was just a point of playing around with it and finding out what worked, what didn't, how to get around it. It was very simple and very easy to understand. I suppose after about a week or so of having it and putting information in and out, I was proficient with it. And through learning with each other and going over things with each other, I think we also brought around those officers that were a little reluctant. Now those same officers are the ones that want the latest technology all the time. Deputy Chief Horowitz says that using technology effectively means spending the money needed and being willing to make key decisions about technology. Success means a commitment to ongoing support. I think our attitude here is that change is inevitable. However, we're not going to force it upon you because when you force things, you get a big backlash. We try and slowly feed change so that we can make you accept it over time because when they do accept it and embrace it, they really embrace it. It's driven by the end users. You need to have a process that enhances the work of the officers for them to adopt it and for them to accept it. It needs to be developed by the staff with the assistance of automation as opposed to a technical group getting together and trying to decipher what the end users need. The biggest surprise about using the PDA is the wealth of information that the PDA has to offer. The information that we have in our database is easily translated down into the PDA for us to access. The offender database includes all the standard personal information about the offenders, their homes and cars, ID numbers given by various law enforcement agencies and information about each offender's case. It even includes photographs, which can be helpful when an employer may not know an offender by his or her legal name. I'm looking for a gentleman who just recently became employed with you, Mr. Frank Smith. Is he available? I don't remember that man. You don't remember it? I'm sorry? Let me show you a photograph of him. Is that him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. What do you know him by? He'd be right there in the back sitting over there. In the back? Okay. No matter how advanced something is, it seems a new and better application is always just around the corner. Deputy Chief Horowitz is now looking at laptops with wireless cards so that officers can dial into the probation office's network as well as the internet. And keep in mind, the beauty of course is, you're not tethered anything, so we're thinking about this in your car, in the field, in an offender's home. When you're truly wireless, you're connecting to your database. You can interact with the data. You can actually query your data. You could actually enter data in. It's not going to be the same identical screen as this? It's the same screen. The issue that you need to decide is, as we look at this technology, and what is your preference? What the preference would be? Can you live with something a little larger that has full functionality? Or would you prefer something smaller that is more portable, easier to conceal? Wireless is probably, in remote access, is probably going to overtake us to the point that it'll be ubiquitous like cell phones are now. So I think we just need to be able to be flexible and just anticipate that there's going to be changes in the technology. And see how that enhances our business process. Keeping the focus on practicality. So I don't have to worry about looking in my fieldbook and looking through my notes and looking through the little scratch pieces of paper to see if this one was current or that one was current. This is the wave of the future. I think we have to use technology to our advantage to make our jobs not only easier, but a lot faster and more accurate. Hello. We had planned to bring you another court history feature today, but instead we're airing an extended version of a conversation about budgets. We will have that moment of court history in a later broadcast. Budget issues are a key concern of court units across the country. The adage, doing more with less, has been heard so long that some fear it may become doing less with less. We recently spoke about some of these issues with court unit managers in the western district of Kentucky. Patrick Craig, chief U.S. probation officer. Jeff Apperson, clerk of the district court. And Diane Robel, clerk of the bankruptcy court made it clear that there are no easy answers in difficult times. The court units in the western district of Kentucky and Louisville face the same budget problems as most units across the country. Reduced budgets now and likely even smaller in the future. The unit manager's responses are typical. I'm assessing every single operational administrative aspect of my office where we can reduce requirements to those that are absolutely needed. We're reducing the size of the office. In the last year, we've lost three positions and in the last two years, up to eight positions. Fortunately, the administrative office and judicial conference offered us some tools, buyouts and early outs, in which we were able to achieve a voluntary reduction in staff. That will help us absorb significantly the impact that we expect the shortfalls to bring next year. In the short term, we're facing a reduction of staff. What I'm concerned about also is that we're going to be able to continue to meet the high standards that the court has for servicing the public's requirements and needs. This is one of the major impacts that budget reduction has had on our district this year. We've lost staff through attrition and have not been able to replace them due to lack of funding. Chief probation officer Patrick Craig worries that fewer officers affect the work of the court. We can basically bring one person on for every two people that we lose, which is going to cause us some similar problems that Jeff spoke about because the courts rely upon us to give them reports in a timely fashion so that their dockets can clear as they like them to. But more than court calendars is affected. I have a lot of people out there that are in the community and doing things, they're traveling, they're doing drug after care, they're doing some things that are costly. Eighty percent of Craig's budget is for staff. While all three of us are in the people business to some extent, most of their people are coming to them and we have to go out and see a good portion of the people that we have, so as I lose people it really has an impact on my ability to be affected. In the bankruptcy court clerk's office, Robel recently proposed consolidating three case administration teams into two and solicited feedback from staff about her proposal. She says that because budget issues affect staff, they should be involved in decisions. She adds that it's important to communicate as much factual information as possible. So that they're not just hearing from me that we don't have money, but they actually hear why we don't have money, how much money we don't have, and that they have more involvement in the overall picture. It's beneficial to them in terms of understanding, it's beneficial to me in that they will contribute ideas, will help brainstorm what direction we need to go or what will work and what will not work. Chief probation officer Craig also involves his staff in a reorganization brought about because there are fewer officers. One of the things that I realize I'm going to have to have is more flexibility in my staff. What I offered to them was a proposal that I thought would work and I said here's where I'm leaning, but I'm open. Give me some counter proposals, give me some feedback. Norma and John and I sat down this week and came up with ballpark ideas, numbers on how things were going to hash out. They came up with multiple proposals and people presented them, did charts, presented handouts and everything else as to what they thought was the most effective way to handle this transition. Right now, I'm right at 50, give or take one or two. And if I'm not going to be doing any precedence reports right now, then my numbers should be up a little bit higher than what that shows to 40. Ultimately, what we're going to do out of it is not the proposal that I put up, but is a proposal that was presented by some of the staff. I think it's extremely important when you're doing that stuff that staff has the ability to at least talk about it, have input into it. You and Eric cover the same counties and Jamie and Amanda cover the same counties. Maybe it'd be beneficial if I went. My long-range concerns are how do you continue to motivate and maintain morale amongst your staff and at the same time effectively get done what needs to be done. Because I think there is a point of saturation and where that is, I'm not certain we haven't gotten there yet, but I think it's on the not-too-distant horizon. And the ironic part about it is that you're in a position of needing desperately to motivate staff, and yet the budget situation is somewhat frightening for staff to experience. So you have to rise above that information and still continue to motivate staff to do the best they can. And I think it's just a matter of letting them become familiar with how this credit card module works. They're still not comfortable with it even after three months. Again, I go back to communicate, communicate, communicate. I'm a firm believer that staff need to have information and that they need to be able to make their own decisions. And I want them to have the information, even though it's sometimes hard to handle, for instance, that we may need to lose an additional position by the end of the fiscal year. That is difficult for them to hear, but I don't want to keep them shielded from that information. I want them to be able to make their decisions. We've got to be real careful about how we publish the issues and how we administer the decision-making process in reducing requirements. I mean, these are people, and they're really special people. They do a great job for the judiciary, many of them for many years, and I think we owe them some. I really try to keep insecurity at a minimum. I don't want my staff to feel threatened, and I want to do this as progressively and voluntarily as possible and include them in the decision-making. It's kind of the golden rule. I wouldn't want to feel like I was going to lose my job tomorrow. Protecting staff is a major challenge, but in a world of smaller budgets, there's also the uncertainty of what work needs to be done. All of us are in a business to where we don't control what comes in. I can't control how many defendants or offenders we get during the year, just like Jeff and Diane can't control filings. Rubel says that because the work of bankruptcy is somewhat repetitive, it especially lends itself to the use of automation systems such as electronic case files, which can save some case administration costs. The offset to that, though, and that has to be kept in mind, is that you still have to increase the automation services, and automation is expensive, both personnel and equipment. So you're not getting a clean savings by merely eliminating case administration, but the reality is that in the bankruptcy courts, those that use ECF to its fullest extent, there are savings to be had, and again, that depends on the judges of each court as to what level of implementation and use they make of ECF. And automation can't do all the work. I do believe that automation brings us a great ability to reduce some of our needs, but I also believe that automation can't supervise offenders in the community, and I need people to do that, so losing people has a huge impact on probation offices. These managers share the same building and a spirit of collaboration. We have fewer resources to rely upon, and we're going to need each other more and more. Court unit managers working together isn't new, but it does require effort. It doesn't just happen. For one thing, units may be in different locations. There may also just be cultural differences between court units and not as much communication, and I think that that's one of the areas where we probably do better than most is that we do see each other and we do communicate with one another on a regular basis. We do quarterly meetings, and we don't actually share one another's budget with the other court unit, but to the extent that a court unit may have lapse funding available or may have some significant projects in place, and they anticipate a shortfall in funding, we announce that to one another, and to the extent that we can, we provide monetary assistance back and forth by shifting funding from one unit to the other unit. Robel says that there also are non-monetary ways to help. We've offered to assist the other court units in providing the non-confidential type of human resources assistance that any office would have. She acknowledges that not everyone embraces this philosophy. I think that there's a sense among my colleagues in the bankruptcy court that there is potentially a loss of independence by too much working together or too much sharing, but I also think it's important for us to realize that we are a part of the larger picture, so it's a balancing in some respects between maintaining your independence as a court unit executive, but also playing a role as a team member within the unit itself. And the secret to doing that? A lot of communication and the freedom to speak freely, to speak openly and to say yes or no when the time arises, and I feel comfortable in doing that. Sharing administrative services is getting an intensive look within the judicial branch, and we're likely to hear more about it. The three managers also talked at length about larger issues in their budget concerns, such as the dichotomy between the emphasis on frugality and the spend it or lose it mentality. I know it's a big element out there right now as practice good stewardship. Spend your money wisely, spend your money prudently. All of us are looking at ways to try and reduce our costs. The downside to reducing costs to some degree is that sometimes you reduce your cost and you lose that funding. I'm not certain what the answer is. I'm not certain that there's any one thing that makes anybody good at what's currently going on. Most of them, if you talk to them, who've been around for a period of time will tell you spend what you get, otherwise you're not going to get as much next year. So achieving good stewardship by just talking about it's not going to get it done. There's got to be some incentive for people to save money, I think, beyond the fact that it's the right thing to do. And I believe it is the right thing to do. I don't know what the answer is to that, but there's got to be a different way of doing it if they want to get to that point. Another issue is the timeliness of knowing how much budget they're going to have. The other thing that's a little difficult is in the planning aspect because we get our money so late, most people that I've talked to at least in probation are pretty limited in what they're spending in the first and second quarters just because they're uncertain of what those funds are actually going to be. And all the funding is based on a historical perspective, so I think it's having some impact on what our funding ultimately is because of how we're having to spend. Because we're under fiscal year pressures to use the money that's obligated for that year. And the later we get it, the less planning we can do with it. And that is a huge problem. Basically in the first two quarters you're in a holding pattern and then you have two quarters in which to plan that current fiscal year. But you're never in a mode of planning the upcoming fiscal year, which is ideally what we should be doing. Without knowing what your funds are, we tend to be very conservative in anything that we spend. It's basically necessity. You don't buy anything or you don't purchase anything. And sometimes you don't even get that that's necessary because you're not certain you're going to be able to make it through the year with the funding that you receive. So you end up not spending as much in the first and second quarter. Therefore we end up trying to figure out in the third quarter what can we spend, but you still know you have to get through the fourth. So you're sort of conservative still. And the fourth quarter doesn't help you because that's not going to be considered in your funding for the next year. We're all wondering what's the floor that we're going to reach here for planning purposes. Which leads Apperson to contemplate an even larger issue. Our role has got to be to reduce costs in every way possible. And we need to do it now because based on my experience, there's a problem in the judiciary that's going to affect all of us locally. And that is that the nondiscretionary accounts are consuming the local discretionary accounts. For example, two years ago, the discretionary nondiscretionary accounts were 50-50. Two years later they're 60-40. If we don't deal with that dynamic, we're all going to be struggling. That dynamic is occurring because Congress is not funding our requirements. If we don't deal with that, public service is going to be degraded. The judges largely control the nondiscretionary accounts. If those accounts are consuming the discretionary and they control those accounts, then they need to be aware of that. The more that we can communicate with them about our funding issues, the more flexibility we'll have to implement reductions in staff and other priorities. But it really is a team effort. I think the judges also have to realize that their use of the central accounts, which we don't control, does indeed affect our ability to use the local accounts. I don't think that message has been quite clearly as well made as it could. How the central accounts are consuming the local accounts, because that has to be made, because Congress is not funding the judiciary fully. If you don't have enough money in the national spending plan, there's a prioritization. Judges, travel, judges, staff, you know, jury costs, legal defense costs, those are all priorities. The managers have to manage the local accounts to accrue the savings that are required to fund the national plan. That's what's happening. Apperson's suggestions? I think every court administrator should convey the issue to their chief judges and let their chief judges decide how best to convey the issue to the other judges. The administrative office can play an increasingly important role here on a national level when the opportunity presents itself to convey the message to all the judges. Apperson strives for perspective, but acknowledges the challenges. Our judicial budget-making policy is one of the most unique models in the world. And I'm really thankful that we have the model where we have the local control we have. But on the other hand, because of the responsibility and using it more effectively, it does make the decision-making process more complicated. We have to know the big picture, the little picture, the politics, you know, and try to anticipate what's coming down the pike. We value your comments about this program and your ideas for future topics. We're continuing a different way to hear from you rather than filling out an evaluation form. Please email me your thoughts, comments, and suggestions at mberney.fjc.gov. That's mberney.fjc.gov. Our next court-to-court program will feature CMECF Training for Attorneys. A moment in court history tells the story of two female legal pioneers. And we'll hear from four clerks of court about their work helping courts in other countries improve the administration of justice. We hope you'll join us. I'm Michael Burney, on behalf of everyone at the Federal Judicial Center. Thank you for watching today.