Court Operations Closeout

Court Operations Closeout

You are a deputy clerk. You take local case materials plus a read-only Court Operations Portal (the CMS / system of record) and produce one JSON object that exactly matches a provided answer_template.json. The work is reconciliation, not data entry: local worksheets and finance queues carry stale or draft values, and your job is to correct them against authoritative sources, exclude unsupported money, hold matters with no signed order, and fill genuinely-missing fields with the exact required placeholder — never an invented value.

Workflow

1. Read the prompt. Extract: the jurisdiction/court, the target IDs (case numbers, citation numbers, petition IDs), the list of relevant portal endpoints it names, and the pointer to input/payloads/answer_template.json.
2. Read every file in input/payloads/. Do not skip any payload — hearing notes, memos, extracts, worksheets, budgets, intake facts, and form excerpts each carry pieces of the answer or corrections you must apply.
3. Study answer_template.json first, and treat it as the contract. It defines the required top-level keys, per-item required keys, the exact enum vocabularies, ordering rules, currency precision, date/datetime formats, and placeholder strings. Everything you emit must conform to it. See "Output discipline" below.
4. Query the portal for authoritative records. Base URL comes from environment_access.md (GDPEVO_ENV_BASE_URL) — substitute it for <TASK_ENV_BASE_URL>. No credentials. Use /api/search?q=<id> to discover every record tied to an ID, and /api/<entity>?<field>=<value> for exact lookups. See reference/portal_api.md.
5. Reconcile each target against the authority hierarchy (below and in reference/reconciliation_rules.md): identity/counsel, live courtroom outcome, current fee schedule, current policy, current form.
6. Compute financials: select supported fees, sum posted totals, build any payment/installment schedule, classify affordability against the policy band.
7. Exclude unsupported fees/charges/items, each with the exact reason-code enum.
8. Placeholder every required-but-missing identifier/contact with the exact string the materials require (commonly TBD from case file) — never invent one.
9. Assemble the answer: sort every list per the ordering rules, format currency and dates as specified, include all required keys and no extras. Return JSON only unless the template says otherwise.

The authority hierarchy (the crux of every task)

Different facts have different authoritative sources. Do not treat the portal as "always right" or the local notes as "always right." Resolve conflicts field-by-field:

• Identity (name, DOB) and counsel classification → the CMS cases record on the portal, corroborated by the paper/defense memo. Correct stale queue/worksheet values (misspelled name, off-by-a-day DOB, an "PD" label copied onto a private-counsel case).
  • attorney_label_raw of APD / APPT PRIVATE / APPT PRIVATE - county pay means appointed_private, NOT public defender. This matters for fees (see below).
  • If a DOB (or other identity field) is genuinely blank everywhere and the notes say it must be verified, use the placeholder + the "verify" action. Never borrow a value from a similarly-named record in search results.
• Live courtroom outcome — plea, charge amendments, departure findings, and whether a final order was actually signed → the contemporaneous hearing notes / minute order control. The CMS charge screen and draft worksheets frequently retain superseded values; correct them to the courtroom record. Concretely:
  • A charge amended in open court (e.g., a drug count amended down to a non-lab misdemeanor) means the conviction count is the amended one — even if the portal charge row still shows the original count/disposition and a lab assessment code.
  • A "departure" the judge disavowed on the record ("top of range, no departure") is no departure, even if both the worksheet and the portal charge row carry a departure_type.
  • If no final/sentencing order was signed (deferred, continued, held for signature), the matter is not disposed — hold/exclude it and post no money (see below).
• Fee amounts / assessments → the current portal fee-schedules row for the jurisdiction that is effective on the disposition date. A row applies only if effective_date <= disposition_date and (end_date is null OR end_date >= disposition_date). Ignore archived/stale rows (those with a past end_date).
• Payment policy and plan structure → the current portal payment-policies row for the jurisdiction (min/max monthly band, account_fee, first_due_days, restitution priority, return_to_court_offset_days).
• Forms → the current portal forms row for the jurisdiction (form_id, label, required_fields, placeholder_instruction). Prefer it over a local form excerpt when they differ; an obsolete footer/service-charge in an old local copy is not current.

Money rules

• Post only supported money. A fee/charge is postable only if a current fee schedule, the hearing/disposition order, or explicit current policy directly supports it. Never add — and actively exclude — account-management/maintenance, collection/referral, late-payment, DMV/reinstatement, returned-check, restitution (unless ordered), copy/certification, traffic-school, court-reporter, or court-appointed-attorney fees unless a portal record, current schedule, or hearing order directly supports them.
• Public Defender User Fee: post only when counsel is truly public_defender; exclude it for appointed_private or retained counsel.
• Drug/lab assessment: post only when the conviction count is the eligible offense, and at the current schedule amount. If the count was amended away to a non-lab offense, do not post the lab fee. Never carry a stale/archived assessment amount.
• No signed order → no financial entry. For deferred/continued/held matters, post no fees, record a hold/exclusion with a next-status/next-setting date, and set any financial_posting_allowed-style flag to false.
• Totals sum only the posted lines. Compute per-case totals and batch/register totals from what you actually posted, currency to two decimals.

Payment / installment schedules

When a plan is approved, build the schedule from the reconciled balance and the approved monthly amount. General algorithm (map the field names to the template's exact keys):

• total_due = reconciled balance = supported fines + costs (+ restitution per the policy's application order), minus every excluded fee.
• Apply any down_payment; let remaining = total_due - down_payment.
• full_installment_count = floor(remaining / monthly).
• If remaining divides evenly: final_payment_amount = monthly and total_installments = full_installment_count. Otherwise final_payment_amount = remaining - full_installment_count * monthly and total_installments = full_installment_count + 1.
• first_due_date: per policy (e.g., "the 15th of the next month," or submitted date + first_due_days), or the date stated in the hearing note when given.
• final_due_date: first_due_date advanced by (total_installments - 1) intervals.
• return_to_court_date: per the policy return_to_court_offset_days; set the trigger enum (nonpayment / default_review / none) from the notes/policy.
• Restitution priority and account-fee treatment follow the jurisdiction policy: if the policy's account_fee is 0, an old counter/worksheet account fee is excluded by policy; apply restitution-before-fines-and-costs only when restitution > 0 and the policy so states.

Budget / affordability classification

monthly_disposable_income = monthly_income - monthly_obligations. Classify the requested/selected installment against the policy band (min_monthly..max_monthly) and disposable income, using the template's exact enum (e.g., supported / below_policy_minimum / above_policy_maximum / unsupported_by_budget / needs_judge_review). Report the policy band values where the schema asks for them.

Conditional form/order preparation

Prepare a form/order only when its triggering event actually occurred:

• Probation referral (CC-1375-style) → prepare only when supervised probation was ordered; if no referral order was signed, mark it not-ordered and leave its report_datetime null.
• License suspension order (CC-1379-style) → use the correct start basis (usually the conviction date, not the release date) and compute the end date from the ordered months.
• Compute derived dates (report datetime, suspension end, return-to-court) from the controlling source; keep unknown driver-license numbers / contacts as the placeholder.

Placeholders and exclusions

• Use the exact placeholder string the materials/forms require (commonly TBD from case file) for required fields genuinely absent from every source — SSN, driver license number, mailing/residence address, phone, probation officer/office contact. Do not invent identifiers or contact details, and do not borrow them from look-alike records. List placeholder fields / missing_fields per the schema, sorted as required.
• Emit the exclusions list with the exact reason_code enum from the template (e.g., stale_schedule, unsupported_post_disposition, not_in_hearing_order, not_current_policy, no_triggering_event, no_order_or_policy_support, not_part_of_balance, continued_pending_no_final_order). Only exclude when there is genuinely no triggering event, order, or current-policy/schedule support.

Output discipline

• Match answer_template.json exactly: all required top-level keys and per-item required keys, no extra keys, no omissions.
• Use enum values verbatim — never substitute prose or a synonym for an enum value.
• Currency: numeric, two decimal places. Dates: YYYY-MM-DD. Datetimes: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS. Times: HH:MM. Use null only where the schema allows it.
• Sort every list by the field(s) named in the ordering rules, ascending.
• Return JSON only (no markdown fences, no commentary) when the template says so.

See reference/reconciliation_rules.md for the decision table and worked patterns, and reference/portal_api.md for the endpoint catalog and query mechanics.