Press Release

52nd District Court's Pay Tickets Online Program Surpasses $1 Million Collected

Pontiac, Michigan, August 11, 2005 -- The 52nd District Court's Pay Tickets online service has passed the $1,000,000 mark in fines collected online. The Pay Tickets online service allows citizens to use the Oakland County Web site to pay fines by credit card for certain civil infractions handled by the 52nd District Court. Since the launch of the service in late 2003, the Court has received nearly 10,000 online payments.

"The 52nd District Court is very excited about hitting the $1 million mark on Pay Tickets online, and we look forward to hitting the next milestone," said the Honorable William Bolle, Chief Judge of the 52nd District Court.

"The use of technology in the courts has resulted in a time and cost savings to the citizens and the courts' staffs. Obviously this is a program that the citizens appreciate given the large number of people who have utilized this service," said the Honorable Julie Nicholson, Chief Judge Pro Tem of the 52nd District Court.

The service is part of Oakland County's overall eGovernment program aimed at making government more convenient and accessible to a greater number of people.

"This is just one example of how we're implementing technology to simplify general tasks and processes while bringing added convenience and value to our citizens," said Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson.

"By using technology to facilitate routine transactions in a self-service environment, we can do more with less – meaning we can use our valuable internal resources for tasks that need more personal attention, whether it's face-to-face service or enhancing programs that serve our citizens," said Phil Bertolini, Oakland County Chief Information Officer.

The Pay Tickets Web-based service has greatly reduced the amount of Court staff time required for the collection and processing of ticket payments, allowing Court personnel to be reallocated from counter service to other Court tasks. Citizens who must still conduct business at the court in person will benefit from shorter waiting periods in line.

According to a case study conducted by the eGovernment Division of Oakland County's Department of Information Technology, each payment transaction conducted via the County Web site results in an estimated direct benefit of $2.33. The eGovernment Division estimates that the payments received via the Pay Tickets online service represent more than $23,000 in benefits to County taxpayers.

The Pay Tickets online service is available for all four locations of the 52nd District Court. It is completely integrated with the District Court's case management system, which enables a fully automated payment process. Many of the other systems available in Michigan and across the country are not integrated, making it impossible to use those systems to look up and validate ticket records or to post payments and close tickets in a timely manner.

Citizens may pay tickets online by visiting the Oakland County Web site at www.oakgov.com and clicking online services.

The Pay Tickets service was developed by the Oakland County IT eGovernment team, online at http://www.oakgov.com/egov/ .

Find out more about Oakland County online resources at www.oakgov.com For media inquiries only, please contact Bob Dustman, Oakland County Media and Communications Officer, at 248-858-1048.