Havre Daily News/Nikki Carlson 

Justice of the Peace Audrey Barger on Thursday morning shows how the traffic tickets from the Montana Highway Patrol are automatically transmitted to her computer in her office at the Hill County Courthouse in order to keep case files organized easier and to speed up the process for traffic offenders. 

The Hill County justice of the peace has been upgrading technology in the lower courts in Montana, with some benefits. Changes such as being able to pay fines and fees for tickets online for a small additional fee are already showing up in the local county court.

“This is very convenient for anyone, ” Justice Audrey Barger said Thursday.

Barger was appointed in March to the automation committee of the state Supreme Court’s Commission on Courts of Limited Jurisdiction. The committee is working to upgrade automation and technology in the 152 courts of limited jurisdiction in the state— 81 city, five municipal and 66 justice courts.

“They have been working on this for years, literally for years, ” Barger said. “They have worked so hard to get this all put together. ”

The committee generally implements the upgrades on a determined schedule, but the first courts to receive them are the courts of the commission members.

Barger said the payment program she is using now has expanded from those eight courts to 23 lower courts.

“They are trying hard to start rolling that out now, ” Barger said, adding that the Hill County Justice Court has been on the program since March. It now has received nearly $3,000 in payments.

“That’s a lot of 20-, 40-dollar tickets, ” she said.

To use the system — an online program that can be accessed from any online computer — people with tickets log into www.citepayusa.com?court=hilljp to access the Hill County Justice Court account.

After clicking on the “Make a Payment” button, people accessing the site enter either their citation number or their case number and their date of birth.

The screen then shows the person’s name, violation date, citation and case number. It then links to the Hill County Justice Court computer program, showing the citation, the date, the code violated, what the defendant was accused of, the amount due, when the accused must pay or appear before the court.

After hitting the “Continue” button, the accused can click on “Forfeit Bond” to avoid having to appear before the court. The page also shows the fee that will be charged, 5 percent of the total.

The justice court clerk, Virginia Seigel, also has entered payment agreements in the system. People accessing the payment system can enter their monthly payment scheduled or the full amount, using e-checks, debit cards or credit cards.

The website then updates the county system and sends an email to the Hill County Justice Court to show a payment has been made.

“This goes directly to our trust account. It never comes to the office, ” Barger said, adding that it is very convenient for both the defendants and the court staff.

One upgrade automatically reports suspension or reinstatement of driver’s licenses to the state government. That will prevent any confusion if someone’s license had been revoked but has been reinstated — the information will automatically be uploaded to the state officials.

Another upgrade is with the Montana Highway Patrol. Patrol officers now enter tickets in a computer system that automatically uploads them to the justice court system.

“My clerk used to have to type every single field, including what color eyes they had, what color hair they had, what their weight is, what their vehicle identification number is, she had to retype everything, ” Barger said, adding that sometimes it could take several days before the ticket arrived at her office.

“So instead of her opening a file and … putting in all of this information on every person every time, it’s already there, ” Barger said.

The Highway Patrol has been using the computerized entry for some time, she said. In her office, tickets from the sheriff’s office, state Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Motor Carrier Services and Tri-Agency Safe Trails drug task force still write tickets manually.

Barger also successfully applied for a grant to buy a scanner for her office, and now is scanning in all documents for cases so they can be accessed on the computers in her office.

She said that, along with allowing her and Seigel to access all documents via computer, this also allows her to email documents to the attorneys involved in cases, who have been very supportive of the upgrades.

“They get their stuff very quickly,” Barger said. “I’m pretty excited about that.”