St. Johns County Clerk of the Circuit and County Court Cheryl Strickland will go before the Board of County Commissioners July 7 for a public hearing to amend an ordinance which will allow the clerk to increase the surcharge of non-criminal traffic infractions and certain criminal violations.
A new Florida law went into effect Wednesday allowing Clerk of the Courts across the state to raise the surcharges. The new law allows counties to enact a county ordinance increasing the surcharges.
In 2004 the County Commission adopted a county ordinance, according to the Florida statutes at the time. The ordinance imposed a surcharge not to exceed $15 for any non-criminal traffic violation and criminal violations of Section 318.117 of Florida statutes.
Strickland will address the board to request an amendment to county ordinance 2004-42, which will allow the clerk to increase the surcharges from $15 to $30.
"That money will go into the county budget to be used to maintain court facilities," said Strickland.
According to Senate Bill 2108, the additional revenue raised by the surcharge increase must be used to fund State court facilities.
Senate Bill 2108 is a revision to the old method for setting the budgets of the Clerk of the Courts. Previously, the Clerk of the Court’s budget was based on the projected revenue increase for each clerk and set by the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation.
Now, each clerk across the state will prepare a budget request for the last quarter of the county fiscal year and the first three quarters of the next fiscal year and submit that budget to the corporation by Oct. 1 each year.
The budget proposal will be based on four core services along with a proposed unit cost, a cost which the corporation will assist the clerk in developing. The corporation and the chief financial officer will then recommend unit costs for each clerk.
"The main change with Senate Bill 2108 is that the budget will now go through the Florida legislature," said Strickland. "Before, we were able to individually establish a budget based on need."
The corporation and chief financial officer will make recommendations to the State Legislature, which can accept, reject or modify the proposed unit costs and then appropriate the clerk’s statewide total budget each year in accordance with the General Appropriations Act.
The unit cost is what it costs to process a case through the system, said Strickland.
Under the new bill, the corporation will be able to release funding quarterly to each clerk based on the prior quarter’s performance of service units using the approved unit costs.
The changes in the way Clerk of the Courts across the state are funded will be phased in, with the corporation releasing funds monthly to individual clerks for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Beginning with the 2010-2011 fiscal year, the new system will be in full effect.
Strickland said that another bill taking effect, Senate Bill 1718, will require the Clerk of the Court to implement an electronic filing process by March 2010.
"They’re mandating electronic filing but right now we don’t have any specifics," said Strickland. "The Supreme Court was supposed to be issuing instructions on how to implement electronic filing, but I haven’t seen anything come from them yet. By Oct. 1 we’re required to be well on the way to fully implementing the electronic filing system."
