Department: Universal Services
Department Head: 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): TBD
Vendor Legal Name (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Current Achievement (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Managing Entity: Universal Services
Incremental Authorization Requested: $2,628,450
Total Estimated Project Cost: $5,932,850
Request Summary:
title
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.
end
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 (FY25), the focus will be on the following applications: JWEB Criminal, JWEB Civil, Justice Capias Warrants completion and - upgrading the database software upon which the JWEB system runs.
Project Scope:
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. The updates and enhancements funded from this CIP 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. The updates and enhancements funded from this CIP 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 Clerk’s 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 electronically send service documents directly to the serving agency, 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 early FY25, and Phase 3 will commence in FY25.
As part of normal product maintenance and support, Universal Services will upgrade the version of Microsoft SQL Server database software used by JWEB, in accordance with Microsoft’s best practices. This process will involve creating a new SQL Server cluster environment, validating the compliance of that new environment with our criminal justice information services (CJIS) and cybersecurity practices and policies, loading data from our test environment to the new environment, validating the data transferred accurately, loading the source code from our test environment to the new environment, validating the source code transferred accurately, loading interfaces from our test environment to the new environment and validating the interfaces perform transferred accurately, and validate performance and functionality in the new environment. Then, that will all be repeated in the new production environment. This upgrade will ensure the JWEB environment receives security patched and bug fixes from Microsoft.
Justification:
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 CJIS compliance and vulnerable to cyberattacks.
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 Project Expenditures and Timeline:
This project is to fund rewriting and modernizing an existing solution.
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Scope of Work |
Estimated Cost |
Estimated Completion |
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Justice Capias Warrants - FY24/ FY25 |
$387,500 |
FY2025 |
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Contracting resources (6 JWEB Developer, 4 Quality Assurance) |
$1,502,000 |
FY2027 |
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Microsoft SQL Server Upgrade |
$500,000 |
FY2025 |
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10% Contingency |
$238,950 |
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Incremental Authorization Requested |
$2,628,450 |
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Alignment with Goal(s):
X Justice and Safety
_ Economic Opportunity
_ Housing
_ Public Health
_ Transportation
_ Flooding
_ Environment
X Governance and Customer Service
Previous Court Action:
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Date |
Agenda Item # |
Action Taken |
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10/8/24 |
154 |
Request for approval of the Final Investment Memo for Application Repair Replace project for an additional incremental authorization of $2,595,730 for an FY2025 total authorization of $3,095,730. |
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Address: N/A
Precinct(s): Countywide
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Commercial Paper |
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Anticipated Court Date: 12/10/2024
Anticipated Implementation Date (if different from Court date):
Legal funding compliance confirmed by: Paige Abernathy, Assistant County Attorney, 11/26/2024
Department Approval by: Louis Carr IJIS Director 10/31/2024, Heather Merkel 11/1/2024
OMB CIP Team Approval by: William McGuinness, Director-Capital Projects & Infrastructure, 11/27/2024
Commercial Paper Request (For OMB use only):
Receiving Department: Universal Services
Project PeopleSoft ID: NI050
CP Series Description: Commercial Paper Series D can be used for (1) construction of public works, (2) the purchase of automobiles, equipment and machinery, including computers, materials and supplies for the operation of the County’s precincts and departments (3) Professional services, including services provided by engineers, architects, attorneys, auditors, financial advisors, and fiscal agents, in connection with the contractual obligations described in (1) and (2).
Commercial Paper is being requested for the JWEB Application Repair Replace project and is expected to be repaid within the next three fiscal years either through bonds, budgetary means or pay-as-you-go sources.
OMB Financial Management contact: Amy Perez, Deputy Executive Director, Office of Management and Budget