CULLMAN – The Cullman County Republican Women met this week, with Cullman County Circuit Clerk Lisa McSwain as their featured guest speaker.
McSwain, who has been in office since 2013, says she really enjoys her role and it’s an honor and privilege to serve Cullman County. “It’s not a boring job. It’s something new every day,” she laughed.
One of her biggest accomplishments since taking office, she says, is the consolidation of the District Clerk’s offices on second floor of the Cullman County courthouse with the Circuit Clerk’s offices on the third floor after state-wide budget cuts. Everyone assumed more work, she says, noting that after the move, the number of occupied office spaces went from about 18 to nine.
Besides the obvious cosmetic benefits of cleaning out and consolidating so much space (“I have made 11 trips to the dump with full dump truck loads,” said McSwain) the best thing, she says, is that everyone is now together in one location. “District and Circuit are now together and everyone knows what everyone else is doing; there’s more cross training.” Before, she said, “District Court office staff knew so little about what Circuit did, and Circuit knew so little about what District did.”
As for the freed-up office spaces, corrections has taken over some, as well as public accounts. There are also four meeting spaces now.
Getting into the details of what her job entails, McSwain said, “Everything that goes on in the court system starts and ends in the clerk’s office- any filing, any paperwork in regards to circuit or district court. We have small claims, district, civil, juvenile, circuit criminal, misdemeanor. My office actually issues misdemeanor warrants. The public can walk in on Tuesdays or Thursdays.”
Harassment is one of the biggest reasons her office handles misdemeanor warrants, she says.
“Everyone in my office is a magistrate. They can do misdemeanor warrants. For felony cases, warrants are issued in the DA’s office, and they bring them to our office for paperwork.”
McSwain also noted that she is on-call 24/7, and her office also has an on-call magistrate.
Additional duties discussed included the handling of exhibits for circuit federal cases, traffic tickets, the jury selection process, passports and elections.
But another thing that McSwain notes as an accomplishment is her office’s participation in the FRAC docket. FRAC refers to fines, restitution and court costs. Basically, money that is owed to the courts or to victims.
“There’s a lot of uncollected monies out there. People just weren’t paying their fines or restitution,” she said.
So, in May 2013, the first FRAC docket was held, where those owing money were summoned to appear and pay up.
“We started out pretty slow,” she said, noting that the first docket saw the collection of about $7,500. “Most recently, we collected more than $20,000.
“Since May 6 up until last week, we’ve mailed out more than $138,000 in restitution payments.”
To find out more about the Cullman County Circuit Clerk’s Office, visit www.cullmancourts.org/circuitclerk.
The next meeting of the Cullman County Republican Women will take place on Tuesday, July 12 at 11 a.m. at the home of Brenda Horn. For more information, call 256-709-5898. Members of the Cherokee, DeKalb, Etowah and Winston County Republican Women chapters will also be attending.
Find the CCRW on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Cullman.County.Republican.Women.
