CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A digitalized computer system for court filing is set to begin in North Carolina this month, but a state leader is pleading with administrators to delay the launch.
Wayne Goodwin, the commissioner of the NC DMV, is asking the Administrator of Courts (AOC) to delay the launch of eCourts in Mecklenburg County and other NC counties.
The new system is designed to keep all of North Carolina's court records online. Administrators hoped to get the new system in place as early as 2021, but continued issues have significantly delayed its rollout.
A test run of the eCourts system was launched in Harnett, Johnston, Lee, and Wake counties in February. Since the launch, court clerks and attorneys have complained about numerous issues with the system.
The new system is called Odyssey and was developed by Tyler Tech. Parts of the new system, including the eWarrants software used to manage warrants, are already operating in Charlotte.
AOC officials continue to downplay the problems — even when a court has had to stop for hours; however, they have acknowledged more than 573 application defects since eCourts went live in North Carolina.
"The eCourts project is still in its early stages as we transition from the four-county pilot phase to Mecklenburg County, and we are encouraged by the progress towards implementation in Track 2 and all of North Carolina," Graham Wilson, the communications director for the North Carolina Judicial Branch, said in a statement in September. "Based on the progress that has been made during the pilot process, there are no plans for an external review at this time.”
Despite Goodwin's concerns, AOC said in a statement to WCNC Charlotte on Tuesday that there are no plans to further delay the eCourts launch. The statement released to WCNC Charlotte reads as follows:
No, AOC is not delaying the Mecklenburg go-live date. By way of background, NCAOC and NCDMV began work on a new data integration in October 2019 and have held regular meetings in preparation for the digital transformation. NCAOC has long forecasted an early fall 2023 Mecklenburg go-live date to NCDMV and other partners. NCDMV’s State Automated Drivers License System (SADLS) is an old mainframe system that is limited in what data it can automatically process and has required remediative efforts (such as manually keying in portions of some records) for over eight years. An instance of SADLS not being able to automatically ingest a data element is not an “error.” At DMV’s request, AOC has developed and installed several modifications to the shared data integration to reduce instances of manual entry. NCAOC will continue to work with NCDMV throughout the eCourts project to mitigate the limitations inherent in the SADLS system.