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District clerk asks for more staff, a records manager and reclassification to handle rising e‑filings and a new district court
Summary
District Clerk Leah Carlson told commissioners that civil and family filings and electronic filings have risen sharply; she requested additional clerks assigned to county courts at law, two clerks for a new district court, a records‑management clerk funded from special fees, and job‑grade adjustments to improve recruitment and retention.
Leah Carlson, Rockwall County district clerk, told the Commissioners Court on June 17 that her office is handling a higher workload driven by rising civil/family filings and a steady increase in electronic filings, and she requested multiple new positions and reclassifications to keep court operations staffed.
Carlson presented three years of filing data showing that felony filings are relatively flat while civil and family filings have increased by roughly 400 cases over two years. She said the biggest pressure is on civil level‑1 cases (small civil claims) and on the routine volume of electronic filings: the office processed about 28,736 e‑filings in 2024, which she estimated averages 18–20 e‑filings per day per employee — well above her team’s target of 10–12 per day for manageable workload.
Staffing requests: Carlson proposed hiring an additional clerk dedicated to county courts at law to relieve two overburdened county‑court clerks. She also asked for staffing to support the incoming “500th and 3rd” district court (two clerks for civil/family work plus two clerks for felony support: one courtroom clerk and one support clerk). Carlson asked to promote an existing employee to civil/family supervisor to reduce administrative burden on the chief deputy.
Records management: Carlson requested a full‑time records‑management clerk to be paid from the district clerk’s records fund. She described an ongoing digitization program (last ledger/minute books remain to be digitized) and said the new position would identify digitized files eligible for legal destruction and manage that process; she noted thousands of physical files remain on the fifth floor of the new courthouse.
Pay grades and retention: Carlson asked the court to consider reclassifying deputy clerk positions from grade 9 to grade 13 and moving senior clerks from grade 13 to 14 after comparing starting salaries with neighboring counties. She said neighboring counties (Dallas, Collin, Kaufman among others) have higher starting pay for comparable positions and reported turnover in recent years tied largely to higher pay outside Rockwall County.
What’s next: Carlson said some planning steps (schematic design requests for space used by the district clerk and adult probation) could be scheduled as workshops and facility tours. Commissioners asked the district clerk to work with the auditor and the judges to quantify the staffing needed for the new court and to present the aggregate fiscal impact so the public and the court can see the total cost of adding a court.
Ending: Commissioners asked the district clerk to coordinate with the district attorney and judges and to return with a consolidated staffing and budget impact estimate for the new court.
