Courts Mo Gov

Rarely a quiet day at circuit clerk's office | County View

The clerk’s office is divided into five divisions. Including me as the elected clerk, we have 48 employees, 43 of which are state-funded positions, and five of which are funded by the Boone County Commission. Our office is a very busy place, and there is rarely a quiet day. In FY 2009 (July 1 to June 30) 11,113 cases were filed with our office, and 10,841 were disposed of. In FY 2010 (July 1 to June 30) the numbers dropped slightly with 9,903 cases filed and 9,973 disposed.

Our office operates on software developed by the state and used on a statewide basis known as the Justice Information System. As a part of JIS, the state has developed Casenet, which allows any person to access information from his or her computer as to any case that is open as a public record. Casenet allows access to state court records throughout the state and many municipal courts as well. Cases can be researched by party name or case number. You can access the daily docket and obtain case status information. In addition, the state judiciary’s website allows access to annual judicial and statistical reports, court forms and rules and much more. The address is www.courts.mo.gov, and the link to Casenet is at the right side.

Due to the state’s ongoing financial situation, the judiciary has seen an increasing cut in funding. The first big cut was in 2009, $2.6 million, and then in 2010 it was increased to $3.5 million. For 2011 and 2012, the withholding was $5 million. Because most of the judiciary’s budget is personnel, that is where the cuts were made — people. In July 2010, the Circuit Court Budget Committee ordered that if an employee left for any reason, a new employee could not be hired until the exiting employee’s annual leave was depleted and four additional pay periods had passed. This was followed by a complete hiring freeze in September 2010. During this time my office lost four employees as some found other employment or retired. The only way we were going to survive this challenge was to be creative and think outside the box.

Two areas that we concentrated on during this shortage of staff were to still serve the public and meet our guidelines set out by statute and court operating rules, which are established by the Supreme Court. We were able to accomplish this due to my dedicated and hard-working staff and supervisors. During this time we put the divisions aside and came together as an office. We moved clerks from division to division; we evaluated each division’s workload every few days so we knew where the biggest shortfall was. It was nothing to see a civil clerk working in criminal division or a family court clerk working in traffic/accounting division. It was kind of funny because there were many times we would get some looks from attorneys or staff from other offices in the courthouse like: “Aren’t you out of place? You aren’t suppose to be here.” In March 2011, the Circuit Court Budget Committee started allowing some exceptions to the hiring freeze, and we have been able to hire some new employees. This was a long time coming, but we made it through, and we most definitely learned from this experience.

Rarely a quiet day at circuit clerk's office | County View ...

The clerk’s office is divided into five divisions. Including me as the elected clerk, we have 48 employees, 43 of which are state-funded positions, and five of which are funded by the Boone County Commission. Our office is a very busy place, and there is rarely a quiet day. In FY 2009 (July 1 to June 30) 11,113 cases were filed with our office, and 10,841 were disposed of. In FY 2010 (July 1 to June 30) the numbers dropped slightly with 9,903 cases filed and 9,973 disposed.

Our office operates on software developed by the state and used on a statewide basis known as the Justice Information System. As a part of JIS, the state has developed Casenet, which allows any person to access information from his or her computer as to any case that is open as a public record. Casenet allows access to state court records throughout the state and many municipal courts as well. Cases can be researched by party name or case number. You can access the daily docket and obtain case status information. In addition, the state judiciary’s website allows access to annual judicial and statistical reports, court forms and rules and much more. The address is www.courts.mo.gov, and the link to Casenet is at the right side.

Due to the state’s ongoing financial situation, the judiciary has seen an increasing cut in funding. The first big cut was in 2009, $2.6 million, and then in 2010 it was increased to $3.5 million. For 2011 and 2012, the withholding was $5 million. Because most of the judiciary’s budget is personnel, that is where the cuts were made — people. In July 2010, the Circuit Court Budget Committee ordered that if an employee left for any reason, a new employee could not be hired until the exiting employee’s annual leave was depleted and four additional pay periods had passed. This was followed by a complete hiring freeze in September 2010. During this time my office lost four employees as some found other employment or retired. The only way we were going to survive this challenge was to be creative and think outside the box.

Two areas that we concentrated on during this shortage of staff were to still serve the public and meet our guidelines set out by statute and court operating rules, which are established by the Supreme Court. We were able to accomplish this due to my dedicated and hard-working staff and supervisors. During this time we put the divisions aside and came together as an office. We moved clerks from division to division; we evaluated each division’s workload every few days so we knew where the biggest shortfall was. It was nothing to see a civil clerk working in criminal division or a family court clerk working in traffic/accounting division. It was kind of funny because there were many times we would get some looks from attorneys or staff from other offices in the courthouse like: “Aren’t you out of place? You aren’t suppose to be here.” In March 2011, the Circuit Court Budget Committee started allowing some exceptions to the hiring freeze, and we have been able to hire some new employees. This was a long time coming, but we made it through, and we most definitely learned from this experience.

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