Josh Boies for DeKalb County Circuit Clerk

The clerk of the circuit court is the officer of the court whose primary statutory responsibility is to serve as the keeper of all court records and to collect and disburse all court-related money.

As the next DeKalb County circuit clerk, I will be dedicated to using secure technology to streamline the operations of the office and save taxpayers' money.

The single most effective way to do this is to give public access online to appropriate court records. I qualify the term court records with appropriate because according to statute, not all court data are publicly available. Common examples of nonpublic data include juvenile and adoption cases, as well as any cases impounded by the court.

When court records are available to the public online, the need for employees to answer phones, search cases, take payments, etc., will be significantly reduced. Additionally, online access to court records and the ability to pay court fines online will reduce current congestion in our courthouse.

Currently, DeKalb County residents, unless they pay a premium fee of $240 annually to software vendor Jano Justice Systems Inc., are unable to do the following:

-check the status of a current court case online.

-check past cases online.

-pay non-mandatory court appearance tickets online.

-pay court fines online.

This is unacceptable. The incumbent circuit clerk first partnered with our current court data software vendor, Jano Justice Systems Inc., in early 2003. In the nearly five years of this partnership, budgets were passed by the DeKalb County Board allocating millions of dollars to the circuit clerk's office. Again, I stress, after five years and millions of dollars, DeKalb County residents still cannot check cases or pay fines online.

Counties in Illinois and all over the nation are far ahead of us in this initiative. For example, Ogle County to the west of us, with a population roughly half of DeKalb County's, has a circuit clerk's office that provides all four of the above services at no additional charge.

It is imperative that we move forward in this office. As your next DeKalb County circuit clerk, I pledge not only to catch up with other counties, but also to make DeKalb County a leader in electronic court data record-keeping. I will bring vision, accountability, competence and transparency to this office.

JOSH BOIES

Sycamore

Democratic nominee,

DeKalb County Circuit Clerk