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Commissioners voted 4-1 Tuesday to reject a proposed $150,000 audit, with Commissioner Alisa Simmons voting in opposition.
The program took 12 years to get off the ground. Tarrant County has TechShare software across its courts system to manage documents, but the courts component of the software has had problems since development began.
Taxpayers have spent more than $28 million on developing the courts software program alone, according to documents from a July 18 work session about the county’s involvement in the program.
Commissioners’ concerns about the program differ. Some commissioners worry the county will not be able to make money off the software as originally intended because there has been no marketing to promote it.
The court decided at its July work session to keep being involved in the program, but not spend any more money on developing software.
Commissioner Gary Fickes, TechShare’s representative on the court, said Tuesday the program works but not perfectly. District Clerk Tom Wilder said the program had 170 open tickets and that there was nothing to hide.
County judge Tim O’Hare told the court Tuesday he wasn’t comfortable putting money toward an audit that would tell the county what it already knows — the courts program is flawed and has issues.
O’Hare said he wished the program was making progress faster and said that if the commissioners didn’t come up with a plan for TechShare moving forward before the new fiscal year, it would be first on the priority list once the budget is passed.
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