Primary Department: Universal Services
Primary Department Head/Elected Official: Sindhu Menon, Executive Director & CIO
Managing Department: Universal Services
Managing Department Head/Elected Official: Sindhu Menon, Executive Director & CIO
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Investment Memo
Investment Memo Type: Final Investment Memo
Project Name: JWEB Application Repair & Replace
Project ID (if applicable): NI050
Vendor Legal Name (if applicable): N/A
MWBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): N/A
MWBE Current Achievement (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Grant Indirect Costs Rate (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% Grant Indirect Costs Rate (if applicable): N/A - Not a grant item
Incremental Authorization Requested: $1,130,000
Total Estimated Project Cost: $5,130,000
Request Summary:
title
Request for approval of the Final Investment Memo for JWEB Application Repair Replace project for an incremental authorization of $1,130,000 for a total authorization of $2,630,000.
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Project Description:
This is a lifecycle management project to address the updates, replacement, or redevelopment of various Justice focused applications.
For the next fiscal year (FY26), the focus will be on the following applications: JWEB Criminal, JWEB Civil, Justice Capias Warrants completion and Phase 2 and upgrading the database software upon which the JWEB system runs.
JWEB Criminal allows Harris County District Courts and Criminal Courts at Law to manage casework details related to criminal complaints. In addition to functioning as a repository for casework information, the data captured also answers offense and casework questions required in federal and state reporting. The users of the JWEB Criminal application are the District Attorney’s Office, District Clerk’s Office, District Courts, Harris County Criminal Courts, Public Defenders Office, Pre-Trial Services, Office of Managed Assigned Counsel, Community Supervision & Corrections and Law Enforcement. JWEB Criminal is the second generation of the JIMS mainframe and is a web-based application which replaced the original 1970’s era mainframe system. This CIP funding will allow the justice community to keep up with new state laws, improved security features, as well as efficiencies gained from using newer technology.
JWEB Civil allows Harris County District Courts to manage casework details related to civil cases. The users of the JWEB Civil application are the District Attorney’s Office, District Clerk’s Office, District Courts, Juvenile Probation and Law Enforcement. JWEB Civil is the second generation of the JIMS mainframe and is a web-based application which replaced the original 1970’s era mainframe system. This CIP funding will allow the justice community to keep up with new state laws, improved security features, as well as efficiencies gained from using newer technology.
This Capias Warrants Automation project will make the civil capias warrants available through the existing Constable Tracking System (CTS) using the same process currently in place that delivers protective orders to the constable offices, which completed phase I. In the current process, the District Clerks Office (DCO) sends CAPIAS warrants to Constable Precinct 1, which is responsible for delivering them to the proper jurisdiction for arrests by serving agencies (Constable Precincts 1-8). The project scope of the Capias Warrants project is to implement an e-delivery process that expedites the service and enforcement of CAPIAS Warrants so that DCO can send service documents directly to the serving agency electronically, where service returns will be electronically returned to DCO. The e-delivery functionality will include new web services, hardware enhancements, and modifications to the Constable Tracking System Application, CT Lite Application, CT Mobile App, and JWEB Civil to provide electronic delivery of CAPIAS warrant documents directly to the serving agencies Constable Precincts 1-8 hosted on the Constable Tracking system. Phase 2 for this ongoing project will be completed in FY26, and Phase 3 will commence in FY27.
Universal Services will invest in and acquire technology to improve our reliability, resilience and failover capability. We will also invest in and acquire technology to improve our application performance monitoring and observability into JWEB for improved real-time monitoring of application performance and availability. We will invest in and acquire technology to improve JWEB application testing of updates and upgrades through automation.
These technology investments will have tangible benefits to the justice community. Once implemented, these investments will provide a higher level of reliability and more insight to ensure any performance issues are resolved quickly.
Anticipated Project Expenditures and Timeline:
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Project Scope Breakdown |
Estimated Cost |
Estimated Completion |
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Justice Capias Warrants phase II contractor developers |
$380,000 |
FY2026 |
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Contracting resources (6 JWEB project Developers, 4 Quality Assurance analysts) |
$1,600,000 |
FY2027 |
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Reliability, Resilience and Failover system (JWEB Interfaces and integration) |
$250,000 |
FY2026 |
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Application Performance Monitoring |
$200,000 |
FY2026 |
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Automated testing tool and services |
$200,000 |
FY2026 |
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FY26 Total Authorization |
$2,630,000 |
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Unencumbered existing project balance to carry into FY 26 |
($1,500,000) |
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Total |
$1,130,000 |
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Justification & Alternatives:
The repair/replacement of these applications is critical to ensure continuity of county justice-based services. This reduces the overhead costs required to support the current applications. The upgraded applications also ensure Harris County departments and end-users do not have to work with unsupported technology or out-of-date processes, which would be more susceptible to failure, places us at risk of being out of FBI criminal justice information services (CJIS) compliance and vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
The new utilized applications will reduce overhead costs required to support current applications and processes. Application updates and enhancements, which will continue to be written in .Net, will provide the following benefits:
• Access to a wider pool of resources for development support
• Enable configuration management to more easily deploy code (using .Net)
• Provide access to a more secure solution
• User access to enhancements not provided in the original design
• Enable the team to clean up some of the current JWEB backlog of bugs
• Continue to receive, from Microsoft, security patches and bug fixes for our database software
Immediate Imperative Need:
The JWEB Repair and Replace CIP request is to address the updates, replacement, or redevelopment of end-of-life processes and applications/software packages. If we elect not to re-write the applications and improve processes, we will continue to see increase in maintenance costs, application outages and potential exposure to increased security risks, impacts to customer functionality, and the ability to service the constituents.
Anticipated Impact on Other Funds (If Applicable):
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County Strategic Plan Goal: 1. Make Harris County safer and more just.
County Strategic Plan Objective: E: Increase efficiency across the legal system.
Justice/Safety Initiative (Goal 1): E1: Modernize data and technology architecture across the legal system.
Infrastructure Initiative (Goal 2): Choose an item.
Economy Initiative (Goal 3): Choose an item.
Health Initiative (Goal 4): Choose an item.
Climate/Resilience Initiative (Goal 5): Choose an item.
Housing Initiative (Goal 6): Choose an item.
Previous Court Action:
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Date |
Agenda Item # |
Action Taken |
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12/10/2024 |
212 |
Request for approval of the Final Investment Memo for JWEB Application Repair Replace project for an incremental authorization of $2,628,450 for FY2025, including transferring $987,500 in authorization from the Application Repair & Replace project (NI032) and request for commercial paper funding in the amount of $2,630,000. |
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Address:
Precinct(s): Countywide
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Anticipated Court Date: 8/26/2025
Anticipated Implementation Date (if different from Court date): Click or tap to enter a date.
Emergency/Disaster Recovery Note: Not an emergency, disaster, or COVID-19 related item
Legal funding compliance confirmed by: Paige Abernathy, Special Assistant County Attorney, 8/14/2025
Department Approval by: Louis Carr, IJIS Director, Heather Merkel, Universal Services Director of Budget, 8/17/2025
OMB CIP Team Approval by: William McGuinness, Director-Capital Projects & Infrastructure, 8/15/2025
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Commercial Paper Request (For OMB use only):
Receiving Department: Choose an item.
Project PeopleSoft ID:
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OMB Financial Management contact: