Returning Money to its Rightful Owners:  $13,141,480.60

Preserving Access to the Courts:  Keeping Costs Down

The Clerk of Court's 7-Point Plan for Reform

Returning Money to its Rightful Owners:  $12,393,423.90 

When someone files a suit, he/she pays an up-front, advance filing fee.  Often, the entire amount advanced is not used up during the life of the suit.  In that case, the litigant is entitled to a refund of the unused portion of the deposit.

Shortly after he assumed office in 1988, Mr. Gegenheimer discovered that his predecessors had not refunded, for nearly 25 years, those unused court costs.  Furthermore, the previous clerks had developed no accounting procedures to identify either how much was owed or to whom it was owed.  Accordingly, Mr. Gegenheimer assigned his accounting staff the dual tasks of identifying those entitled to refunds along with the exact amounts owed.  That formidable project took four years to complete.

By 1991, the refund checks began flowing from the clerk of court's office to a surprised public.  No one who received a refund check really had expected one.  Some of the checks were refunds for cases that had been completed in the 1960's.

To date, the clerk of court has refunded money that was owed for too long to those who had used and depended upon the court system.  As of July 1, 2006, the clerk of court refunded to the public $12,393,423.90.  That amount covers the period 1963 - 1988.  The clerk's accounting department is working hard to process refunds covering 1989 - present.  That project is well underway.

In 1992, Mr. Gegenheimer developed a new accounting system which assures that refunds of unused filing fees are issued timely and consistently.  That is most certainly a positive development.

***Refunds from civil case activity will be issued upon request. However, outstanding balances from other cases will be satisfied accordingly. Please call (504) 364-2912 if you have any questions about civil case refunds and billing.***

Preserving Access to the Courts:  Keeping Court Costs Down

Since 1988, when Mr. Gegenheimer assumed office, the clerk of court's office has made a special effort to minimize filing fees.  Mr. Gegenheimer has kept court costs down by, among other things, providing for cost-installment payments by those who, although they are not indigent, cannot pay a lump-sum filing fee.  A person whose annual income is $20,000 and who supports a family of four might not qualify under the law as a pauper, who would be exempt from pre-payment of court costs.  Still, he/she may not be able to pay the advance deposit fee of $365.00 in civil cases.

Accordingly, Mr. Gegenheimer implemented a payment-plan procedure in which litigants pay as little as $5.00 per month to satisfy their court-cost obligations.  Jefferson Parish is the only jurisdiction that employs this innovative mechanism.  If everyone pays his fair share according to his means, court costs can remain stable. 

Some people balk at this practice.  They wrongfully contend that those who cannot pay an up-front filing fee should be exempt from payment altogether.  If the complainers had their way, those who pay their court costs up front and as they become due would suffer a fee increase to compensate for uncollected costs from exempt litigants.  That would be grossly unfair.

The clerk of court's office receives no tax revenues to finance its operation.  It has to rely on filing fees to pay its employees' salaries and benefits.  The clerk's employees are dedicated public servants who rely heavily on their paychecks and hospitalization insurance benefits.  The clerk of court, although he has kept court costs down by utilizing the aforesaid payment-plan procedure, has awarded his employees over $5,500,000.00 in raises and benefit enhancements since 1988.  He has done this even though the clerk's portion of court costs is virtually the same as it was in 1988.

The Clerk of Court's 7-Point Plan for Reform

The clerk of court can no longer serve effectively unless he/she embraces technology.  Accordingly, Mr. Gegenheimer devoted his third term to improving the office's existing technology and formulating a strategic plan for the 21st century: 

     1.  Improving the integrated criminal justice system by, among other things, expanding it to encompass the traffic and misdemeanor courts and the juvenile court.

     2.  Developing an electronic filing and record-storage/retrieval mechanism for all court documents, which can be available to the public on the Internet.

     3.  Making land records, already scanned and stored electronically, available on-line via the Internet and paving the way for the electronic filing of land records.

     4.  Implementing an electronic (paperless) trial procedure where documents and other forms of solid evidence are introduced, displayed, and preserved for the record by electronic image.

     5.  Enhancing the already computerized jury-management system by creating a detailed computer database of each eligible citizen's jury-service history.  This will assure fairness in jury-service excusals and selection.

     6.  Computerizing the marriage-license department to save applicants time and money.

     7.  Computerizing the elections-administration system to allow quick, on-line, Internet access to election results, polling place locations, names and addresses of elections commissioners, and dates of scheduled elections.

The agenda outlined above is ambitious, indeed.  As well, it is complex, multifaceted, and expensive.  The agenda will not be realized overnight.  During his fourth term, Mr. Gegenheimer made significant progress in each of the seven specified areas, and actually completed items 5, 6, and 7.

Items 1 through 4 require further detailed, time-consuming planning and implementation.  Perfection of all of the intricate procedures involved in those projects will depend on unprecedented co-ordination and cooperation among the clerk of court, all judges, all lawyers, the district attorney, the sheriff, the indigent defender board, and others.  Mr. Gegenheimer intends to secure that cooperation; and, during his 5th term, he pledged to complete items 1 through 4.

During his fifth term, Mr. Gegenheimer continued his substantial efforts to bring about the full computerization of the court, land-records, jury-management, and elections-administration systems.  The clerk of court's office completed items 2 and 3 and made substantial progress on items 1 and 4.

In his sixth term, Mr. Gegenheimer has seen completion of the 7-Point Plan as well as implementation of an electronic filing procedure in the mortgage and conveyance office.  The movement towards efficient, paperless court and land records filing continues; and by the end of the sixth term, the courthouse will be almost completely paperless.

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