This is the number one question asked by the public.
The Prothonotary's Office is involved with all civil (non-criminal) records and filings for the courts. In other words, the office handles all public records for the courts as well as filings from both attorneys and the general public.
Please see some examples below. Equally as important, the Prothonotary's Office preserves the public's access to records of opinions, decisions and judgments of the court.
A person’s time is valuable and time is of the essence in many of these court cases that involve:
- An individual who wants divorced from an abusive marriage
- An individual who wants to fight for custody of their children and save them from unsafe situations
- Or, the working family that is appealing its property taxes so it might be able to lower the tax burden on its household
Other Services:
- Name Changes
- Passports
- Civil and Family Court Records
- Judgements and Liens
There are a number of issues about Phyllis Matheny that many individuals have voiced a concern about:
- The office is behind the times compared to neighboring counties
- You couldn't even email the office until now (they recently created an email address after Matt Staniszewski brought this to the public's attention on January 27, 2011)
- The office spends thousands of dollars of our tax money to store paper
- The office is not friendly or convenient for you (Many older documents are stored in a dark basement and cannot be easily found. This limits your rights to access public records. The Prothonotary's office is suppose to protect your rights and ensure you have easy access to public records.)
- The incumbent has been promising online capabilities for over 16 years (4 terms in office)
- The incumbent recently started scanning documents in so you can VIEW them online. What happened to the promise of being able to e-file and do online transactions?
- The office passes over qualified candidates and instead hires family members (Nepotism runs wild throughout the office)
Staniszewski outlined a number of goals to bring the Prothonotary's Office into the 21st Century:
- Scanning of all existing documents and developing a system to enable you to e-file and retrieve records online 24/7 conveniently from your office or home (your time is valuable and imagine if you could do this at your convenience)
- Implementing a nepotism policy and NOT treating the office as a family heirloom (this will provide equal employment opportunities for everyone)
- Tightening the belt on government spending (this includes saving you money in paper storage costs)
- Creating a friendly, convenient, efficient and effective office that works for you (that's our job in government - to serve you)
- Placing people first and NOT politics
- Planning to enable the office to "have the app for that" (imagine if you needed a document quickly in a remote area and it could be downloaded directly to your smart phone)