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Committee hears proposal to raise court-automation fee from $7 to $10 and add CPI escalator
Summary
At a public hearing, Rep. David Dolan presented House Bill 3,443 to increase the court automation surcharge from $7 to $10 with a CPI escalator; Eric Jennings (Judicial Conference of Missouri) supported the measure, citing decades-old fee levels and system usage statistics and explaining fiscal-note assumptions including a $14,000,000 estimate and a 51% conservative collection-rate assumption.
Representative David Dolan presented House Bill 3,443 during the Missouri House Judiciary Committee’s public hearing, asking the committee to increase the court automation surcharge from $7 to $10 and to add a CPI escalator.
Dolan told the committee CaseNet and related systems are heavily used, citing figures in the hearing: "5,400,000 hits a day on CaseNet," and that the state maintains "22,800,000 records," with "2,100,000,000 hits" since the system began — figures he used to illustrate rising operational costs that the current $7 surcharge has not matched.
Eric Jennings, testifying for the Judicial Conference of Missouri, said the court automation fund covers "less than a third" of automation costs and noted the surcharge has not changed since 1994. Jennings described the proposal as "to raise the fee from $7 to $10" and to add a CPI escalator, and he urged the committee to consider that general revenue is typically the preferred funding source for recurring core costs even while the surcharge is a historical funding mechanism.
Committee members asked about the fee amount and how surcharge revenue is used. Representative Smith (District 74) and others asked whether the fee funds staff salaries; Dolan and Jennings said salaries are generally funded through general revenue appropriations and that automation fees mainly support software, vendor costs and court automation functions. When the chair raised the fiscal note showing about $14,000,000 in estimated collections tied to a reported 51% collection rate, Jennings explained the 51% figure is a conservative estimate that reflects the difference between fees assessed and amounts actually collected after default and collections processes.
No witnesses registered opposition and the public hearing was concluded. The committee did not take a final vote on HB 3,443 during this session.
