Annual report
At the end of each year I've prepared an annual report for the Board of Commissioners, the Court of Common Pleas, and court related and court supporting county departments detailing the Clerk of Courts' activities and accomplishments for the prior year. This year and in years going forward as I begin my second term I'd like to share that information with the people of York County - our "shareholders" - to whom I ultimately report and am responsible to for the resources you provide as taxpayers.
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In 2007 the Clerk of Courts filed 8,058 criminal cases up from 7,990 in 2006 breaking the "8,000" cases threshold for the first time. Overall the Clerk's office processed a total of 12,403 cases in all case categories - Administrative, Criminal, Miscellaneous, Juvenile and Summary Appeals up 3.6% from 2006 and exceeding the 12,000 mark for total cases processed.
270,604 docket entries were created in 2007 up from 242,905 (a 11.4% increase) docket entries made in 2006. Increased docket entries reflected the greater complexity in the cases processed by the Clerk's office. Annual docket entries per clerk totaled 7,731 in 2007 vs. 7,144 in 2006 and 6,523 per clerk in 2005.
Deputy clerks continue to be more productive year-over-year. I have an excellent management team and staff. My thanks to them for their tremendous work they accomplish on a daily basis.
In 2007 the Clerk's office prepared 977 State Correctional Institution commitments - a 32% increase over 2006's 741 state commitments. Additionally we processed 221 Superior Court Appeals and expunged 889 cases per court order in 2007.
Imaging or the electronic capture of paper filings continued in 2007 with 1,296,212 pages scanned for a total of 3.4 million+ pages of court documents currently available via the County's Intranet to authorized agencies. Our imaged documents have become a vital tool for the Court and related departments and ensure that we meet our basic two-fold mission of 1) preserving the record and 2) making our records accessible.
Our imaging initiative received some added attention at a vendor conference held in Los Angeles, California on January 14th where the County of York's use of the Laserfiche imaging application was showcased with a focus on the Clerk's office as the heaviest county user of the application to date.
And last but certainly not least we continued to see substantial growth in our costs, fines and restitution collections. In 2007 the Costs and Fines Unit deposited a total of $8,960,092.16 - an increase of $3,024,279.65 or 51% over 2006's total deposits.
Approximately 41% of the total was receipted to the County of York with the remaining half disbursed to the Commonwealth, municipalities and victims of crime. Specifically restitution totaled $2,861,761.55 a 64% increase over 2006.
Increased collections reduce the burden of the taxpayer in supporting York County's criminal courts and provide a measure of justice to the victims of crime. It will continue to be a top priority of mine as long as I serve as York County's Clerk of Courts.
Don O'Shell
Clerk of Courts
York County Judicial Center
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