OakVideo: Efficiency and Cost Savings through Cooperation by Robert

existing infrastructure and partnerships between local governments
provided strong support for the OakVideo project.
The key physical development supporting the system was
the completion in 1999 of OakNet, a 480-mile network of
Gigabit fiber optics connecting all city, village, and township
administrative, police, fire, court, and other facilities to a centralized
service bureau. OakNet connects the IT department
and local government units for high-speed data, voice and
video transmissions, Internet access, and e-mail service. (See
Exhibit 2 for the characteristics of Oakland County and the
technical requirements for OakVideo and Exhibit 3 for a
schematic of OakVideo and OakNet.)
CLEMIS ORGANIZATION
The existing partnerships among local governments had
long been institutionalized by the Courts and Law
Enforcement Management Information System (CLEMIS).
CLEMIS has been operating for 30 years as a clearinghouse for
shared applications whose IT infrastructure is operated and
subsidized by Oakland County. It is a consortium of approximately
225 public safety entities (police, sheriff, prosecutors,
courts, fire, and homeland security) in a six-county region in
Southeastern Michigan. CLEMIS provides 25 system applications
to its members, including OakVideo.
At the outset of the needs analysis and design phases of the
OakVideo project, Oakland County secured assistance from
all entities that would be affected to ensure that their operating
needs would be met. Oakland County was funding the
cost of development and deployment of OakVideo (which is
the case with most other CLEMIS projects), and the project
attracted active and enthusiastic participation quickly.
Generally,there was no resistance to the change in operations,
although several judges did object to videoconferencing in
lieu of face-to-face arraignments and chose not to make use
of the service.
The actual deployment required far more effort than originally
expected, however, because the OakVideo design and program
needs were more sophisticated than the state-of-the-art
videoconferencing equipment and software could initially support.
On a number of occasions, work-around solutions were
required because the equipment or software available could
not meet a requirement.County engineers were eventually able
to overcome all the equipment and software obstacles.
Despite some significant early glitches,staff was able to use
some system functions right away.Warrant processing, which
had not been envisioned as a major part of the system, was a
notable early adopter. Oakland County’s original deployment
model called for the individual district courts to go live at the
same time as police departments within that court’s jurisdic-
Exhibit 1:Videoconferencing Modules Under
Development
The following OakVideo modules are under development
to enhance the system’s benefits to Oakland County and
local government units:
■ Jail visitation — avoids direct family-to-inmate contact
and mitigates transfer of contraband
■ In-custody parent/child visitation — allows video visitation
of children held by Oakland County with parents
■ Telemedicine — mitigates transport of inmates
to emergency rooms for minor health-care needs
■ Court recording — provides a full-feature application for
recording trial testimony, including voice-to-text translations
■ Centralized after-hours arraignments — decreases
police holding-cell costs and related exposures
■ Remote testimony — permits live expert witness testimony
via videoconferencing in courtroom settings, avoiding
unnecessary adjournments
■ File access — allows Web-based access to offender files
for defense attorneys (mitigating clerical and filing tasks)
■ Tower surveillance — provides remote video surveillance
of public safety tower system to mitigate theft and vandalism
(with a similar system being installed for water and sewer
operations)
■ Centralized docket scheduling system — mitigates conflicts
between courtroom requests for offenders held on
multiple charges
28 Government Finance Review | April 2008