APPENDIX 2 - ELECTRONIC PUBLIC ACC

PROGRAM 
ELECTRONIC PUBLIC ACCESS PROGRAM 

GENERAL STATEMENT AND INFORMATION 

The Electronic Public Access program provides electronic public access to court information in accordance with f

policies, and user needs. The internet-based Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service providthe public with access to court dockets, case reports, and the more than one billion documents filed with the courts 

Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system. PACER is a portal to CM/ECF, making both systems inte

access. In fiscal year (FY) 2018 alone, PACER processed 507,646,883 requests for case information. Currently, there are more than 2.9 million PACER user accounts; approximately one-quarter of all user accounts Besides court staff, users include members of the bar; city, state, and federal employees; and the general public. 

users are major commercial enterprises or financial institutions, with the Department of Justice being the only no

top ten. During FY 2018, the judiciary’s PACER Service Center established 294,013 new PACER accounts and 248,000 telephone and email requests. Pursuant to Congressional directives, the Electronic Public Access program is funded entirely through user fees s

Conference of the United States. Fees are deposited in a special account in the U.S. Treasury and are then used e

cost of the judiciary’s entire electronic public access program. The components of this program are listed on paginclude activities such as operations of the PACER Service Center; electronic bankruptcy noticing; and the teleco

telecommunications, replication, archiving, development and maintenance costs associated with CM/ECF. 

Revenue from user fees has remained flat since FY 2013 and is projected to total approximately $145 million in 

registered PACER users recently exceeded 2.9 million, this increase is not expected to impact revenue projection

exemptions, on average only 34 percent of active users are actually billed in any given quarter. The majority of fcome from a handful of users, with two percent of accounts generating more than 87 percent of the revenue. 

The judiciary continues to improve electronic public access to its records, with initiatives that have been put into access, including: 

• Improved PACER Search Tool. Upgrades to the PACER Case Locator (PCL) in 2017 simplified the sear

cases and allowed users to more efficiently narrow their search results across all courts. The PCL serves 
PACER and is a database that contains more than 51 million court cases and 310 million party records, w

The updated PCL allows users to save preferred cases and searches so that they can quickly access a case anytime. The PCL also provides simplified search screens and makes it possible to perform searches from 

• Notification of Case Activity. Six appellate courts, 75 district courts, and 92 bankruptcy courts have impl

Really Simple Syndication (RSS), to “push” notification of docket activity to the public free of charge, mu

committee might notify its RSS users of press releases, hearings, or markups. The public can easily stay openings, filings, and docketed events provided by a court's RSS feed. The RSS feed includes automatic 

all cases including summarized text, such as the name of the document filed, with links to the document and 

• Electronic Bankruptcy Noticing. Electronic Public Access program funding supports Electronic Bankrup

which electronically transmits bankruptcy notices to those who register for EBN (instead of transmitting tMail). In FY 2018, over 33 million notices were transmitted electronically, saving approximately $7.6 mprinting costs. The judiciary established a program in 2014, known as Debtor Electronic Bankruptcy Not

provide debtors with electronic court notices and orders upon request. DeBN is a noticing improvement fthe cost of debtor noticing. Currently, 59 bankruptcy courts are offering electronic noticing to debtors thrprogram. 

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES FOR FISCAL YEAR 2020 

Case Management/Electronic Case Files CM/ECF, first introduced in early 2001, revolutionized the way federal courts and the bar managed cases and doto a Next Generation of CM/ECF (NextGen CM/ECF) is well underway. The requirements-gathering phase of thMarch 2012, as groups of judges, chambers staff, clerks, court staff, and Administrative Office staff identified anfunctional requirements. The project also received input from the bar, academia, government agencies, and othefocus groups, and surveys of approximately 10,000 of the judiciary’s stakeholders. The first NextGen CM/ECF 

in the Second and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals in the fall of 2014. Since that time, an additional 40 courts haCM/ECF. Implementation of NextGen CM/ECF will be done in quarterly waves, with approximately 15 courts i

wave (Wave 12) begins in January 2021. 
Obligations of Funds from Electronic Public Access Receipts 

The Electronic Public Access receipts fund operations, maintenance, and improvements in Electronic Public Ac

is projected to total approximately $145 million in both FY 2019 and FY 2020. Obligations are projected to tota2019 and $141.0 million in FY 2020. The FY 2019 revenue is supplemented by $71.6 million in unencumbered from FY 20181. 

The obligation of Electronic Public Access program receipts has been impacted in recent fiscal years by a ruling the District of Columbia in NVLSP, et al. v. U.S. In its ruling, the court upheld the judiciary’s use of Electronic funds for the vast majority of its public access program but did determine that several ancillary services, includineJuror, and the Crime Victims Notification System, were impermissible because they lacked a sufficient nexus t

federal court’s CM/ECF docketing system. In response to the ruling and pending the outcome of the case on app

provisionally shifted funding for those disallowed categories from the Electronic Public Access program to the S(S&E) appropriation, beginning in FY 20182. Given the importance of these programs, the judiciary sought fun

appropriation for these activities in FY 2019. The total amount of these requirements in FY 2020 is approximat

included in the appropriations request for the S&E account. The reallocation of courtroom technology, eJuror, a

Notification System to the S&E account removed requirements from the Electronic Public Access program withreduction in revenue. This has resulted in the temporary increases in Electronic Public Access balances, which w

outcome of the appeal and then utilized as necessary and appropriate. Consistent with longstanding practice, the 

use Electronic Public Access funds for the CM/ECF system and EBN among other appropriate expenses. The juCommittees updated on the progress of this litigation and any resulting decisions about the use of Electronic Pub

funding. The current FY 2020 Electronic Public Access program requirements are shown in Table A-2.1. The judiciary cexamine all Electronic Public Access program requirements for optimal utilization of available resources to impcourt information. 

1 The projections for obligations and revenue in FY 2019 do not include $23.8 million in encumbered carryforward from FY 2018 to FY 2 In FY 2018, there was a partial shift of these requirements from the Electronic Public Access program to the Salaries and Expenses app

approximately $8.4 million was shifted in FY 2018. 
The table below provides obligation data by program and financing for FYs 2018, 2019, and 2020. 

Table A-2.1 Utilization and Financing of Electronic Public Access Receipts & Prior Yea

($000)3

Program Category 

FY 2018 

Actual FY 2019 Plan 

Public Access Services 13,039 18,639 CM/ECF Development, Operations, and Maintenance 44,288 54,235 Courtroom Technology 1,424 0 Communications Infrastructure, Services, and Security 43,146 47,370 Electronic Bankruptcy Noticing 5,300 6,243 Allotments to the Courts 6,422 11,947 Web-based Juror Services 718 0 Violent Crime Control Act Notification 125 0 TOTAL 114,462 138,434 Unobligated Balance, Start of Year 58,126 71,647 Estimated Receipts 145,764 145,200 Prior Year Recoveries and Exchanges (Projected FY 2019 & FY 2020) 6,077 2,500 Unobligated Balance, End of Year4 -71,647 -80,913 

3 Electronic Public Access revenues are deposited into the Judiciary Information Technology Fund (JITF). See chapter 11 for more infor4 The FY 2018 Unobligated Balance, End of Year does not include $23.8 million in encumbered carryforward funding.