General Sessions Clerk seeks 22 positions, Tyler upgrade and decade-long archiving project

Tammy Sawyer, the General Sessions Court Clerk, presented her office's FY26 budget request and said its priority is restoring capacity after recent turnover and completing several technology upgrades. She told the subcommittee the clerk's office now has 147 staff and 15 temporary workers and that roughly 84% of the office's $10,000,000 expense budget goes to salaries and benefits. "So our FY26 request is going to be focused on first, new positions and promotions," Sawyer said.

Sawyer said the office expects to ask for 22 new positions to be shared across civil, criminal and finance functions and outlined two technology asks: a $71,750 share for a Tyler case-management upgrade and roughly $71,000 to fund an archival partnership with the register of deeds to begin a decade-long digitization of loose and bound dockets (an initial estimate of ~19,000 images). She also explained a coding error flagged in the FY24 audit that made FY24 expenditures appear overstated and said revenue projections for the coming year reflect corrected accounting.

Commissioners pressed on whether the technology items and salaries covered raises or only new headcount. Sawyer clarified that PayIt (an online payment system) and the Tyler upgrade are separate items and that some PayIt costs were already covered this fiscal year; she said the archiving expense will be drawn from data-processing funds already on hand. She described other operational efforts to reduce backlog — including Saturday overtime shifts and cross-training — and said the office is not assuming staff reductions from the planned technology investments because many customers require in-person assistance.