Maine Court E-Filing Burdens DA Staff, Raises Taxpayer Costs
Source: sunjournal.com
- New court e-filing software forces district attorneys' staff to manually enter defendant details and offense statutes instead of court clerks.
- Two DAs warn they may need extra county-funded staff, which could raise property taxes.
- Courts know about the workload spike but hope future tech fixes will help.
Maine's switch to electronic court filing with Tyler Technologies software is piling extra work on district attorneys' offices. Staff now handle repetitive data entry that clerks used to do, straining resources in places like Kennebec and Somerset counties. This matters because it could lead to hiring needs funded by county taxpayers just as the system rolls out wider.