Being a Clerk of Circuit Court seems a powerful position that many people probably want to have, but wait until you know how much workload is expected to be done by Pat Frank. The responsibilities that clerk Frank deals with don’t end at the courthouse. She is also responsible for the finance investment portfolio for Hillsborough County, which equals to a million dollars.
The biggest concern that Pat Frank has is the 8% budget cuts for administrative cost that the courthouse is facing. The vast amount of workload is done by less and less people after the first cut of 117 employees but the only way the courthouse will survive is if the clerk takes another pay cut from her departments
The biggest concern that Pat Frank has is the 8% budget cuts for administrative cost that the courthouse is facing. The vast amount of workload is done by less and less people after the first cut of 117 employees but the only way the courthouse will survive is if the clerk takes another pay cut from her departments
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We as citizens have to ask the state legislators how they expect the Hillsborough County Courthouse to survive when they don’t do anything to help it. They even want nine additional judges to the court system in the county which will have to be paid by Mrs. Pat Frank. But the problem doesn’t end there, those judges each need three clerks to deal with their dockets for the cases, which makes the money problem even bigger.
We as citizens have to ask the state legislators how they expect the Hillsborough County Courthouse to survive when they don’t do anything to help it. They even want nine additional judges to the court system in the county which will have to be paid by Mrs. Pat Frank. But the problem doesn’t end there, those judges each need three clerks to deal with their dockets for the cases, which makes the money problem even bigger.
With the recession we are in today our judicial system deals with more and more violations of the law are seen. The workload is overwhelming for each department in the courthouse that deals with family law cases, civil cases, felony cases, juvenile cases, misdemeanors cases, and traffic court cases. Those people not only maintain the paperwork of the cases for 75 years, but they also keep all of the evidences that go along with the cases.
The worries that Mrs. Frank has don’t end up with the 8% budget cuts. She also has to worry about converting all the data that the court maintains into electronic documents. The case documents are not safe at the warehouse on Falkenburg Rd. because they can be easily destroyed by any type of natural disaster. This long process is delayed for years due to pay cuts and workload volume.
Dana Caranante, Director of Juvenile Court Operations, in the office of Clerk of the Circuit Court, took us through family law department, civil case department, traffic, and felony case departments to see the amount of paperwork they keep. She also showed us how we can access the records available there. The only records we can’t copy for a $1 are the child abuse records because they are confidential.
Dana Caranante provided the class with some helpful tips and websites which will guide us when we are looking for public records in the Clerk of the Circuit Court for Hillsborough County.
Clerk of the Circuit Court for Hillsborough County - http://www.hillsclerk.com/
To search the Court Progress Docket-http://publicrecord.hillsclerk.com/oridev/criminal_pack.ins
Florida Statutes- http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statuts/
Florida Rules of Procedure- http://www.floridabar.org/
13th Judicial Circuit- http://www.fljud13.org/
To search official records- http://pubrec3.hillsclerk.com/oncore/Search.aspx
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