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City secretary says court-documentation issues flagged by auditors are being corrected
Summary
Auditors again flagged missing court case documents and uncontrolled judge signature stamps. The city secretary told council the problems are being cleaned up, documents are being uploaded to case files, and the judge’s stamp has been placed under secure control.
Auditors told the Town of Hollywood Park in the fiscal-year governance letter that certain municipal-court records were not uploaded to the case-management system and that one case had both a dismissal and a judgment recorded on different dates without proper supporting documentation. Auditors also noted that a judge’s signature stamp had been accessible to court staff.
City Secretary Jeanette Huggins told council the condition has been addressed: missing PDF documents that had been stored locally on the clerk’s computer were uploaded into the case-management system while auditors were on site, and staff members are assisting with backlog upload. Huggins said she instructed court staff to use a dedicated time slot to upload documents — for example, Friday afternoons — so that all documents are attached directly to their court cases and do not remain archived only on a local drive.
On the judge’s signature stamp, Huggins told council the stamp had been taken into secure custody at the direction of the mayor and is no longer in routine possession of the court clerk.
Several council members asked that staff return to a future meeting to confirm that the backlog is cleared and that auditors’ repeat comments do not reappear in next year’s report. The city secretary agreed to notify council when uploads are complete and to provide a status update.
