APPENDIX 2 - ELECTRONIC PUBLIC ACC

PROGRAM 
GENERAL STATEMENT AND INFORMATION 

The Electronic Public Access (EPA) program provides electronic public access to court information in accordance statutes, judiciary policies, and user needs. The internet-based Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACE

provides courts, litigants, and the public with access to court dockets, case reports, and the more than one billion with the courts through the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system. PACER is a portal to CM

both integral to effective public access. In fiscal year (FY) 2019 alone, PACER processed nearly 550 million reqinformation. Currently, there are more than 3.2 million PACER user accounts; approximately one-quarter of all user accounts year. Besides court staff, users include members of the bar; city, state, and federal employees; and the general pu

ten biggest users are major commercial enterprises or financial institutions, with the Department of Justice being 

commercial user in the top ten. In fact, approximately 87 percent of all PACER revenue is attributable to less thaactive users. During FY 2019, the judiciary’s PACER Service Center established 314,946 new PACER accounts more than 285,700 telephone and email requests. Pursuant to Congressional directives, the EPA program is generally funded through user fees set by the Judicial C

United States. Fees are deposited in a special account in the U.S. Treasury and are then used exclusively to fund judiciary’s entire EPA program. The components of this program are listed on page Appendix 2.5 and include acoperations of the PACER Service Center; electronic bankruptcy noticing; and the telecommunications, replicatio

development and maintenance costs associated with CM/ECF. The judiciary continues to improve electronic public access to its records, with new initiatives that have been put 

broaden public access, including: 

 Increasing Free Access to Court Records. To make court documents free for more users, the Judicial Co

an increase in the quarterly waiver from $15.00 to $30.00, effective January 1, 2020. So now, no fee is oaccess to court data or audio files via PACER until an account holder accrues charges of more than $30.0

billing cycle. Doubling the quarterly fee waiver will allow approximately 77 percent of active PACER u
records for free.

 Enhancing Public Outreach. PACER.gov is the public presence of the PACER service where users regis

manage their account, and get information on the various ways of accessing court information. As part oeffort to enhance its public outreach, the PACER.gov website is being redesigned. The new web site will experience, provide mobile compatibility, and incorporate plain language. The new website is expected tearly 2020. 

 Establishing an Electronic Public Access User Group. The EPA Public User Group has been formed to c

provide feedback on ways to improve PACER and other public access related services in the future. The group has 12 non-judiciary members who represent the legal sector, media, academia, government agencentities that use PACER. The EPA Public Users Group will have its first in-person meeting in early 2020

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES FOR FISCAL YEAR 2021 

Case Management/Electronic Case Files CM/ECF, first introduced in early 2001, revolutionized the way federal courts and the bar managed cases and dotransition to a Next Generation of CM/ECF (NextGen CM/ECF) is well underway. The requirements-gathering concluded in March 2012, as groups of judges, chambers staff, clerks of court, court staff, and Administrative Ofand prioritized hundreds of functional requirements. The project also received input from the bar, academia, govand others through interviews, focus groups, and surveys of approximately 10,000 of the judiciary’s stakeholders

NextGen CM/ECF release was implemented in the Second and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals in the fall of 201an additional 66 courts have gone live on NextGen CM/ECF. Implementation of NextGen CM/ECF is done in q

with approximately 15 courts in each wave. The last wave (Wave 12) begins in January 2021. 
Obligation of Funds from Electronic Public Access Receipts The EPA receipts fund operations, maintenance, and improvements in EPA programs. Access to case informatioremains at .10 cents per page and the cost to access a single document is capped at $3, the equivalent of 30 pages

higher quarterly fee waiver that took effect January 1, 2020, PACER revenue is expected to decline slightly. Revto total approximately $142 million in both FY 2020 and FY 2021. At this time, obligations are projected to total $184.1 million in FY 2020 and $175.2 million in FY 2021. The FY supplemented by $123.3 million in carryforward funding from FY 2019, which includes $105.8 million in unenccarryforward and $17.5 million in encumbered carryforward funding. The obligation of EPA program receipts has been impacted in recent fiscal years by a ruling of the District Court Columbia in NVLSP, et al. v. U.S. In its ruling, the court upheld the judiciary’s use of EPA program funds for thpublic access programs but did determine that several other services, including courtroom technology, eJuror, anNotification System, were impermissible because they lacked a sufficient nexus to information on the federal coudocketing system. The judiciary disagrees with this interpretation and has filed an appeal with the Court of AppeCircuit. However, in an abundance of caution, pending the outcome of the case on appeal, the judiciary provisionally shif

$30 million in funding for those disallowed categories from the EPA program to the Salaries and Expenses (S&Ebeginning in FY 2018. Final appropriations for the S&E account in both FYs 2018 and 2019 were sufficient to cboth the judiciary’s standard S&E requirements as well as these resources shifted from the EPA program, but thiin FY 2020. With final S&E appropriations below the requested level, the judiciary was forced to make trade-ofcontinuing to support these disallowed categories at full funding versus funding them at a reduced level and provfunds for court support staffing (including probation and pretrial services offices, as well as appellate, bankruptcy clerks offices) to handle increasing workload. For FY 2020, the judiciary is fully funding the disallowed categor

between standard S&E program requirements and the disallowed EPA expenditures will continue to challenge thfiscal year in which enacted appropriations constrain the judiciary from fully funding its entire request. 
Consistent with longstanding practice, the judiciary will continue to use Electronic Public Access funds for the C

electronic bankruptcy noticing among other appropriate expenses. The judiciary will keep the Committees updat

this litigation and any resulting decisions about the use of Electronic Public Access program funding. The current FY 2021 EPA program requirements are shown in Table A-2.1 on page 2.5. The judiciary continues examine all EPA program requirements for optimal utilization of available resources to improve public access to information. In FY 2020 and continuing into FY 2021, requirements for CM/ECF are projected to increase signihigher costs are due to several factors, including: the incorporation of necessary security protocols, the ongoing r

“technical debt” (e.g., correcting coding errors, re-writing inefficient code) associated with the system’s infrastrucomplexity of maintaining many different instances of the application, and the rapidly evolving IT environment. The table below provides obligation data by program and financing for FYs 2019, 2020, and 2021. 
Table A-2.1 Utilization and Financing of Electronic Public Access Receipts & 

Prior Year Recoveries ($000)1

Program Category 

FY 2019 Actual 

FY 2020 

Plan 

FY 

Re

Public Access Services 16,827 29,495 CM/ECF Development, Operations, and Maintenance 48,603 73,016 Courtroom Technology 0 0 Communications Infrastructure, Services, and Security 50,308 51,885 Electronic Bankruptcy Noticing 6,040 6,243 Allotments to the Courts 5,341 23,467 Web-based Juror Services 0 0 Violent Crime Control Act Notification 0 0 TOTAL 127,119 184,106 Unobligated Balance, Start of Year (95,505) (123,278) Estimated Receipts (146,594) (142,000) (1Prior Year Recoveries and Exchanges (Projected FY20 & FY21) (8,298) (2,500) Unobligated Balance, End of Year2 123,278 83,672 

1/ Electronic Public Access revenues are deposited into the Judiciary Information Technology Fund (JITF). See chapter 11 for more in2/ The unobligated balance at the end of FY 2019 includes $105.8 million in unencumbered carryforward and $17.5 in encumbered ca

million in encumbered carryforward (or project slippage) includes $12.6 million for allotments to the courts; $2.6 million for commun

services, and security; $1.2 million for CM/ECF development, operations, and maintenance; and $1.1 million for public access service