New district clerk says office can fund jury‑selection software upgrade from internal savings

Will Keaton, the newly sworn district clerk (speaker 7), told commissioners on Aug. 7 that he and his chief financial officer have identified roughly $220,000 in salary‑side savings that can be reallocated.

"We estimate that we're going to be a surplus right now of about $220,000," Keaton said, and he proposed using that money to fund a Tyler jury‑selection upgrade that staff described as urgent. Keaton said his office would prefer to cover the project internally rather than draw from IT’s budget.

Keaton also presented a restructuring plan for the office that would change titles and realign duties (moving supervisor titles to lead or intake roles); the proposal would eliminate net positions in the short term by reclassifying staff, a change commissioners cautioned would need parity checks against countywide clerk pay grades.

Why it matters: Jury‑selection software is directly tied to court operations and can improve efficiency; funding it within district clerk savings avoids new requests to general IT lines during a lean budget year.

What’s next: Commissioners asked staff to reconcile the presented numbers with the proposed budget (which already includes a clerk restructuring plan and a COLA line) so the court can confirm whether the one‑time initiative should be funded from the obsolete filing‑fee fund or returned to the proposed budget.