Brown County commissioners approve additional data storage for criminal discovery

Brown County commissioners on the record approved buying additional data-storage capacity under the county's existing contract with Tyler to ensure compliance with discovery and retention requirements.

County staff told the court the current contract provides a base of 20 terabytes but that the county's needs are growing. "My understanding is that we should be somewhere between the range of 24 to 40 terabytes," said Speaker 7 during a detailed briefing on the project. Speaker 7 also cited the Michael Morton Act and Code of Criminal Procedure retention rules, saying prosecutors and county attorneys must retain and make discovery accessible to defense counsel for long statutory periods.

Speakers described technical constraints with cold-storage options and warned that storing data offline could make it hard to retrieve files promptly if an appeal, habeas writ or open-records request requires quick access. "If we don't approve more storage, our data cannot be pulled over, and our system stops working," Speaker 7 said.

During the discussion speakers referenced a stepped pricing proposal that had been discussed in prior meetings; exact contract pricing and year-by-year charges were not fully clarified in the meeting record. Speaker 4 moved to approve the additional storage purchase and Speaker 2 seconded the motion. The court took the motion forward for vote and proceeded to authorize expansion of storage under the Tyler contract.

Next steps: staff said the item will be revisited when the Tyler contract comes up for renewal and that ongoing conversations will be needed to calibrate future storage needs as technology and case volumes change.