SPONSOR: Dolan
COMMITTEE ACTION: Voted "Do Pass with HCS" by the Standing Committee on Judiciary by a vote of 11 to 1.
The following is a summary of the House Committee Substitute for HB 3443.
Currently, the court collects as a court cost $7 for the statewide court automation fund. This bill increases the amount to $10. The bill specifies that, starting July 1, 2027, and every July thereafter, the fee associated with all civil cases and certain criminal cases assessed as court costs will be adjusted annually for inflation based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The annual adjustment will apply to all cases filed on or after July 1st of the year in which the adjustment was made.
The following is a summary of the public testimony from the committee hearing. The testimony was based on the introduced version of the bill.
PROPONENTS: Supporters say that this authorizes an increase in the fee for court automation for the automation of records for the State. They Case.net system is used every day and it is the lifeline of all attorneys in the State. Case.net receives 5.4 million hits per day. The State maintains 42 million records in the system. The cost of operations is only increasing and this is the first increase they have asked for in a long time. The last time an increase was requested was around 2015. Last time it was actually increased was in 1994.
Testifying in person for the bill were Representative Dolan; and Eric D. Jennings, Judicial Conference of Missouri.
OPPONENTS: There was no opposition voiced to the committee.
Written testimony has been submitted for this bill. The full written testimony and witnesses testifying online can be found under Testimony on the bill page on the House website.
Statutes affected: