Grant County prosecutor's office gets new software

EPHRATA — The Grant County Prosecutor’s Office is installing a new software program to save time, money and paper.

The Grant County commissioners approved spending $98,000 for the Damion software program Monday. The money was part of the 2009 county budget.

The case management software is designed to cut down on the amount of paper in the office, by storing everything electronically.

“Right now everything is done with paper,” Grant County Prosecutor Angus Lee said. “This is going to allow us to move into the 21st century.”

One of the examples Lee gave was with police reports. He said presently the police have to mail or fax in their reports. With the new system, they should be able to electronically transfer the information, where it can be reviewed by the prosecutors.

Also, the when the attorney’s file charges they can add the information to the database without having to use more paper, he said. This will allow them to keep better track of the cases and prevent problems with the wrong information getting into the file.

“We’re paying for paper,” he said. “We’re paying for printing and we’re dealing with a delay. It takes time to physically build these files … (The new program is) going to save a lot in time and we’re going to be able to track our cases better. It’s going to drastically reduce our need for data entry.”

Lee met with Rafael Gonzalez, the director of the Grant County’s Public Defense Department, to look at ways the new software could help communication between the departments, Lee said.

Gonzalez mentioned there is additional software for public defenders in his report to the commissioners on Jan. 20.

Lee said if the defender’s department received the software, it would make transferring files easier and decrease delays.

Switching to the new system will allow the office to eliminate a lot of physical activity, such as pulling the file, removing the documents from the binder and  making copies, when dealing with public records requests, Lee said.

“We can review the file for what’s privileged information and then burn it onto a CD,” Lee said.

He expects it to take about nine months to a year to fully implement the program. While it could be done quicker, Lee wants to make sure the process is done deliberately, so there aren’t any problems.

“You have to balance progress with change,” he said. “Anybody can make changes, but we want progress.”