FONDA — Montgomery County Probation Department staff must manually re-enter several months of data into case management software after an internal server crashed and digital records were lost.
Digital copies of previously entered reports from December through this month were lost after the server crashed around two weeks ago. But, the department does have hard copies of all of the impacted files.
“It’s not unusual for a server to go down. What is unusual in this case is we were not able to recover the data,” Montgomery County Executive Matthew Ossenfort said Wednesday. “We do have this information, we just have to re-enter it into the digital system.”
Montgomery County Probation Director Eric Girard was clear the issue has not impacted regular operations, including supervision of juvenile and adult offenders.
“Community safety is the priority,” Girard said. “The probation officers are still carrying out their duties as probation officers. They're out in the field.”
Most of the data re-entry is being handled by Girard, a pair of unit supervisors and two administrative assistants. Other staff assist when free from other duties. They’re around halfway through the process.
Digital reports related to around 40 to 50 clients were lost. There could be multiple reports on some individuals depending on the status of their cases. The department prepares reports pertaining to pre-trial release, pre-sentence investigations and supervised release.
“Doing it case-by-case as it comes up, that’s what we do, that’s our day-to-day, but when we have to put in all that information at once, because it was wiped out, then it becomes more daunting,” Girard said.
The department notified local courts of the situation, but it has not delayed any cases and is not expected to in the future.
“We’re not asking for adjournments, we’re not holding things up,” Girard said. “We’re back putting in the new cases and continuing to send out reports as they’re needed.”
To prevent a recurrence, department files will shift from an internal server to cloud-based storage under a three-year contract with Catalis approved by the Montgomery County Legislature on Tuesday. The service will cost $11,250 for the first year and reach $12,640 in the third year.
It’s unclear why the county never previously accessed the service from Catalis, which developed the caseload management software used by the department since it was adopted throughout the state around 2009.
Local agencies were able to choose whether to maintain their own servers or pay Catalis for cloud-based storage. Girard, who became probation director in July, said the decision was revisited as the years went on and the software improved, but he does not know why the county never moved to cloud storage before.
“In its infancy, the county was definitely capable of maintaining that ourselves to not have to endure that cost and had been right along,” Girard said. “After this crash happened, we mutually made the decision that this has to be done.”
While it does not eliminate the risk of losing files, Ossenfort said storing and backing up data to the cloud protects against internal issues and system crashes. He added that outside maintenance and support reduces the workload on county IT staff.
The county is gradually moving from internal servers toward cloud storage in various departments, according to Ossenfort.
“County infrastructure can only handle so much. We’re moving to cloud-based solutions wherever we think it makes sense. We look at it case-by-case,” Ossenfort said.
Probation Department files could be moved to the cloud as early as this weekend, Girard said. Staff will continue re-entering data in the meantime, which he estimated will take a couple more weeks to complete.
“We’re working late nights, coming in early,” Girard said. “My staff have been really on top of this. They've been working tirelessly. It’s an added stress, but it is what it is.”