At the Rio County Commissioners Court budget workshop, a justice of the peace asked the court to convert a current part‑time clerk position to full time to support rising justice‑court workloads and an electronic filing transition.
Nut graf: The JP said statutory increases in justice‑court jurisdictional limits and an influx of debt‑collection suits have increased filings and administrative work, leaving the office short‑staffed and unable to shift from paper to electronic filing without additional staffing.
The justice of the peace said: “What we're we're asking for is our clerk, our second clerk be made full time.” He described one long‑tenured full‑time clerk, Tanya Sheldon, and a recently hired part‑time trainee who is limited to 29 hours a month under county administrative rules. The judge said recent health issues for the long‑serving clerk — “she had cancer surgery, a few months ago…she's scheduled for surgery again next week” — made the staffing shortfall urgent.
The JP traced the workload increase to legislative changes raising jurisdictional limits: courts moved from $5,000 to $10,000 (2007) and to $20,000 (2020), and he said debt‑collection filings migrated to justice courts as a result. He said the office remains largely paper‑based and that a full‑time second clerk is needed to implement electronic filing and to avoid ex‑parte communications, which the judge noted the bench cannot handle directly. Budget staff provided a cost estimate: converting the part‑time position would increase county payroll by about $18,276 for FY26 (salary delta presented at the workshop).
Ending: Commissioners did not vote at the workshop; staff asked to reflect the JP’s request and the estimated $18,276 payroll impact in the draft FY26 budget for later consideration.