by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
The cost of staples alone must amount to a small fortune.
Wherever you turn in the Clerk of Court’s offices and cubicles is . . . paper. Loose paper, paper in pink and brown folders, paper in envelopes, paper on shelves and packed in cabinets, paper on desks and rolling carts. Clipped and collated and stapled paper.
Practically everyone’s every deed and misdeed is on file, from the rocking of the cradle to the rolling of the hearse. It’s a record of our successes and failures, hopes and crushed dreams, fortunes made and investments gone sour.
There are two primary challenges faced by the many offices that come under Clerk of Courts Jim Fuller.
One is accuracy, making sure there are no errors in the documents required for every transaction and proceeding.
The other is keeping track of it — all 2,000 to 2,500 documents that are processed each day.
“We do everything at the courthouse,” said Fuller. “If it weren’t for the clerk, the courts above the first floor wouldn’t work. All the files are kept here. They wouldn’t have any paper.”
Many records are required to stay on file for 10 years, but there are exceptions. The documents associated with an adoption or a capital felony trial have to be kept for 75 years.
New ways are devised, then perfected to make the pile smaller, more manageable. Making room, moving the pile.
Court Operations Supervisor Norma Dean has about six people typing data into the computer system and about 20 others working on files in her department, on the second floor of the Courthouse. They primarily maintain the files and house the depositions for the Family and Civil departments.
“They pull the files, check, make sure all the pleadings are in there, put them in order and file them again,” said Dean.
Between 9 and 10 each morning, between 30 and 50 attorneys can be lined up at the counter, looking for a file that needs to go to a judge.
“It’s a real interesting department to work in; real challenging,” said Dean, who was division clerk in Felony for 20 years. “Up here is totally different. They do it all.
“You’d be amazed at what all is done here. The people up here really do more work than people realize.”
The Circuit Civil division processes between 70 and 80 new cases each week, said Charlene Ricks, assistant to the clerk for Circuit Civil and Family Law sections.
The division handles lawsuits for more than $15,000, liens, foreclosures, car bonds, adoptions, divorces, child support , name changes and more.
“They all have to be very knowledgeable,” she said. “They all do a very good job of keeping up.”
They have plenty to keep up with. A partial list of activities includes:
• An estimated 11,000-12,000 evictions a year.
• About 11,000 to 12,000 cases in the Juvenile Division.
• Some 13,000 cases through the criminal courts.
• Around 600 new cases a year in the Dependency Division, for children who are, or will be, in the care of the state.
• From 60,000 to 70,000 cases in Human Resources and County Civil.
• Between 80,000 and 90,000 misdemeanors a year.
“Just about anything the court handles becomes an official document,” said Tom Hiers, internal auditor and assistant to the clerk for Recording and Official Records. “It’s a court requirement, but it’s a protection, too. If you need a document, you’ve got a copy here.”
Handling all that paperwork is labor-intensive, time-consuming and expensive. That is why the county went to CORIS in 1994, one of the first in Florida and the United States to do so, Hiers said.
The Clerk’s Official Record Imaging System makes an image of the documents and creates an index as well.
CORIS was “relatively new in 1994,” said Hiers, “but it certainly has come on heavily since then. Now, almost every county does some form of imaging in their county records.”
The process saves space and cuts costs, he added.
“There’s a high cost to handling paper,” said Hiers. “It gets a lot less expensive to image it and handle it as few times as possible.”
Innovation is helpful, but having people who know what they’re doing is invaluable, said Gordon Morgan, chief assistant to Fuller.
“Overall, the people in this office are really good at what they do,” he said. “Our clerks, the ones out there on the line, have specific skills. It’s not like typing skills or answering the phone.
“They need to know what they’re doing, and they didn’t learn it overnight.