Clerk Funding.

The article "Clerks reeling from budget woes" in the November 1 News is interesting. In it, the Palm Beach County clerk of court shares a complaint offered by many county clerks statewide: a lack of funding.

By this letter, I do not suggest that this, or any other, clerk is guilty of misrepresentation of this claim of funding, and I do not suggest that the problem is necessarily one of the clerks making.

Several years ago, citing the foreclosure crisis and the overwhelming use of the judicial system from foreclosure cases, the filing fee for a foreclosure action greater than $250,000 was raised from somewhere around $350 to $1,900 in a well-disguised effort to have the banks essentially subsidize the clerk's office and the courthouse by way of an excessive filing fee. The cited reason for that needed increase was to hire additional judges, case managers, and related personnel, and this apparently could not be done with the $350 or so then existing filing fee, even considering the fact that the revenue from the $350 filing fee, multiplied by the volume of additional cases, was huge.

As the filing fee schedules currently sit, one can sue 100...