Allowing Florida’s court clerks to retain a larger share of the fines and fees they collect is paying off, but staff retention remains a major challenge, the head of the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation told a House panel last week.

The clerks have seen their court-related workforce plummet from nearly 8,000 FTEs a decade ago, to 6,017 today, CCOC Executive Director Jason Welty told the House Justice Budget Subcommittee.

The staffing decline coupled with inflation, rising insurance costs, and Florida’s population growth has left clerks with a smaller, more expensive workforce to handle a workload that is growing an average of 6% per year, he said.