Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller: Todd Barton

Age: 64

Hometown: Gary, Indiana

Political Party: Democrat

Occupation: CEO of THB Justice Consulting

About: I served as the Executive Officer and Clerk of the Superior Court of Kings County, California from 1992 until retiring in 2013. Prior experience includes Chief Deputy Clerk and Chief Court Executive positions with the United State Bankruptcy Court in California, the Federal District Court in Alabama, and the Broward County Clerk of the Circuit Court, among others.

As a Justice, Court Facilities and Operations Consultant, I have directed numerous facility and operational consulting projects with courts, prisons, and county administrations around the country.  My projects have included design and construction of projects in nine states, including the Circuit Court facilities in Jacksonville and Orlando.  I’ve performed administrative and organizational projects in Broward, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Indian River, Duval and Brevard counties.  I’ve done court facilities consulting for the Supreme Court of Singapore and the Magistrate Court of London, U.K.  I have worked on organizational consulting projects for the current Sarasota Clerk of Court on three different occasions.

I have Master’s Degrees in Judicial and Public Administration from the University of Southern California.  I have certifications from the Federal Judicial Training Center and the Institute for Court Management.  I have also taught courses on Judicial and Public Administration at Indiana University, The University of Arizona, The University of Southern California and Lake Michigan College.

What qualifies you for this elected position?

I have spent my entire career in court system administration, some 40 years of experience.  I have managed court administrations in both the federal and state systems.  I was Chief Deputy Clerk of Court in two Federal courts, and in Broward County in Florida.  In Lake County, Indiana I served as Assistant Court Administrator and Chief Deputy of the Lake County Probation Department.  I was Clerk of the District Court in Berrien County, Michigan.  I served as the City Court Administrator in Tucson, Arizona.  For 21 years, I served as Clerk of the Court in Kings County, California.

I have managed staffs of up to 600 people, budgets of upwards of $15 million, and revenues of over $100 million.  In King’s County, Calif., my team and I managed a complete physical and organizational overhaul of the court administration system.  This included shepherding our office through the recession in 2007 and 2008 where we were able to cut our budget by almost half, with no loss of services to the citizens and no layoffs of staff.  In 2012, I lead that administration in a major building project wherein we were able to trim $39 million (almost one-third) from the cost projections on a brand new county court administration complex.  I believe in participatory management, leadership by example, and fiscal responsibility because I serve at the will of, and for, the taxpayers.  In order to rein in budgets and expenses, I have taken personal salary reductions and personally renegotiated vendor contracts.  In Kings County, Calif., we had an annual staff turnover consistently under 6%, which is a huge cost-saver and stands in stark contrast to the current 16% turnover in Sarasota County.  Low turnover is primarily a function of great morale, great training, and great culture.  I am very proud of that record.

If elected, what would be your top three priorities after you are sworn in?

First, there is the problem of poor culture, employee dissatisfaction and high turnover that needs to be addressed.  From a business perspective, losing employees - especially key employees, blows up budgets.  Replacing people costs time and money.  It also damages morale, which translates into poor service to our citizens.  Our Clerk’s office (which services everything from traffic fines, document recording, passport applications, marriage licenses, jury duty, etc.) should be a place where our bosses – the taxpayers – have fair access and an excellent experience.  Second, with budgets shrinking due to outside forces, I would immediately start looking for ways to save costs.  Reducing services should never be the answer.  We need to renegotiate bloated political contracts with vendors.  We need to double efforts to collect outstanding fines, and keep more of those collections rather that handing an exorbitant amount over to the collection agencies currently used.  Finally, we need to serve the southern part of the County much better than we are now.  That is where most of the growth is, with many of those folks being dual-income, hard-working families.  Yet, in Venice we have a dilapidated court facility that is neither secure, safe, nor properly staffed.  I’ve done these projects over and over, so let’s roll up our sleeves with all of the County stakeholders and find a way to reduce the cost and get it done.

Are there any audits that you would have handled differently had you been Clerk?

Well, first, I think there’s the audit that’s not being done.  When the Clerk has an admitted 16% annual employee turnover, it demonstrates an organizational failure, as any competent business owner will tell you.  The cost of replacing key employees, such as your Court Director, Inspector General/Auditor, Human Resources Director, Clerk Finance Director, Office Finance Director and multiple department managers and supervisors is staggering.  This is all evidence of a serious organizational and leadership problem that is affecting the culture of the office.  Service and ethics always suffer under these circumstances.  This office is in dire need of a complete organizational audit.  There have been other problematic audits as well.  One that comes to mind was the County procurement “scandal” a few years ago.  Our current Comptroller identified violations and ethics conflicts in the procurement system long before the “official” audit.  She stated she was disregarded as a “bean counter” by the county.  Yet, for years she made no real attempts to remedy the issue.  When you’re a public servant, you disclose the results, warts and all, immediately.  If the issues aren’t addressed, it’s your responsibility as a public servant to inform the public if that’s what it takes.  At the very least, she could have put a freeze on payments until seeing that corrective measures have been taken.  That’s the only way to honor the public trust – complete transparency.  But that’s not what appears to have happened.

Are there any other issues or processes you would have handled differently?

I am elated that my candidacy has spurred the current Clerk to do things that should have been done long ago, such as accepting fine payments online and having a much more user-friendly website.  But, these are the kinds of things that strategic leadership would have brought to the table much sooner.  There are still issues with docket and case management systems, particularly the cobbling together of ClerkNet and Benchmark.  Justice suffers when our judges don’t have efficient access to case management systems, previous orders, out-of-County orders, etc.  This system needs to be looked at closely.  If it’s costing more time and money to fix glitches rather than build a new system, then make the investment…it’s an ROI calculation and good business leaders make these day in and day out.  Finally, we have an exploding population in North Port.  Most of those folks are hard-working, dual-income families.  There should be basic clerk’s office services available for them in North Port.  Our current Clerk turned down an offer from North Port to provide space free of charge for some Clerk functions in the North Port City Administration building.  I would’ve found a way to make this work.

Why do you think voters should unseat an incumbent to elect you?

Very few organizations thrive and innovate with the same leadership for almost 30 years.  This is clearly the case here, as I have outlined above.  And, let’s be honest, Karen Rushing will not be the incumbent Clerk of Court forever.  So the fundamental assumption of this question is unfounded.  At some point Rushing won’t run again, and the voters will have no choice but to choose a replacement.  But I exist now, I’m qualified to do the job, I have a passion for bringing leadership and good fiscal management to bear, and to set up organizational structures that will continue to serve the citizens of this County for years to come.  Make that choice right now, or risk Sarasota County being ill-prepared for a future as a world-class economic engine in Florida.