SIDNEY — It was a very busy 2019 in the Clerk of Courts offices.
“In the Legal office of the Clerk of Courts, we processed over 90,000 filings, touching over 10,000 cases,” said Clerk of Courts Michele Mumford. “The new case load for the Legal office for 2019 is as follows: civil cases 300, domestic 233, criminal 383, notaries 104 and judgment liens including state of Ohio Tax Liens 902. The Legal office continues to add old cases to the on-line docket including images of the case documents.
The Legal office had receipts of $1,047,943.37 then applied and distributed $932,536.87. These monies are distributed back as restitution owed on various cases, fines, court costs, Sheriff fees along with state and local mandated fees that are distributed to either the state of Ohio or the Shelby County Treasurer. That leaves $115,406.50 held on deposit for pending cases.
As of September 2019, the Notary Modernization Law went into effect. The Ohio Secretary of State now has the total responsibility to maintain all notaries for the State of Ohio. This modernization will include on-line training and testing for all notaries and renewal of their commission. If there are questions concerning notaries, please contact the Secretary of State’s office.
The Legal office continues to streamline office processes with the E-filing system. We also work with our software company to keep the software as up to date as possible. Our Legal office has also been the “go-to office” for other County’s, investigating the potential for their offices moving toward e-filing. We have had many phone calls and visits to our office, from other Clerk’s and their staff, from around the State.
The Clerk of Courts Title office has gone through some changes, both legislative and office related. The Title Office manager retired, leaving an opening. Gina Fridley, previously the Title Office assistant, has accepted the responsibility as the Title Office manager. Gina brings with her 7-plus years of title office experience. As previously mentioned in last year’s report, there are new titles for vehicles and watercraft. The new titles were implemented in August. It’s the consensus of the Title office staff, the new, 8 ½-inch by 11-inch title is easier to fill out and read due to its larger size and has been well received by the public.
New scanning software (escan) and computers were installed in November 2019 for scanning purposes. The State of Ohio will be installing new title computers in 2020 for each workstation. The computers currently in use were put in by the State approximately 4 years ago. In January 2020, Watercraft will also be implementing their new ODNR Watercraft registration system. Title Deputy Clerks will be trained on the new system prior to implementation. It will be a web-based training that each office can schedule to view when it works best for their office. The Title Office processed 18763 Vehicle titles, including duplicates, salvage, liens and memos.
We collected $4,873,731.12 in fees and taxes. Of that amount $4,486,164.99 was paid to the State of Ohio as tax revenue. We also processed 390 Watercraft titles, including duplicates, liens and memos. Watercraft registration fees collected was $26,992. Of that amount, $24,136 was distributed to ODNR with $2,856 staying in the county and distributed to the General Fund. The Title office also processed 352 passport applications as a Passport acceptance agency for Shelby County. This amounted to $12,320 being sent to the General Fund for Shelby County.
As the Shelby County Clerk of Courts, I am truly grateful for the opportunity and honor to serve the citizens of Shelby County.
