Over the next several years, Yelm’s Municipal Court could see multiple additions to the department in staff and equipment.
At a City Council meeting last week, Yelm Court Administrator Sonia Ramirez formally requested another full time court clerk and five additional scanners.
Multiple departments within the City of Yelm attended the Yelm City Council on Tuesday, Oct. 8, to present budget requests, as the city’s finance department is preparing the 2025-26 biennial budget.
Ramirez said that the total funding needed for the proposed court clerk position would be $91,650 for 2025-26. She noted that the position’s expense would be offset by approximately $50,000 per year from probation and passport fees.
“Historically, the courts have been operating with just two office staff for the last 40 years — one court clerk and one court administrator. As the city and police force continue to grow, any case load they produce affects everything that the court does as well,” Ramirez said. “Our case load and workload will increase, therefore adding this full-time employee, an entry-level clerk, will serve as not only a backup to the current court clerk, but they’ll contribute to all workload distribution and overall improve efficiency and better service.
“This is a much-needed addition to assist with office duties,” she continued. “It will also allow myself and the court administrator to focus on just administration work tasks without having to be the backup as we have been doing for the last 40 years.”
Ramirez said the municipal court also seeks $2,000 to purchase five scanners needed once the new court-case management system is implemented.
“I was told by the Washington courts that we’re probably in line to implement that system at the end of 2025 and into 2026. It would affect our budget, so I’d be asking for $2,000 for that,” Ramirez said.
She said the department began the transition to a paperless court by using the Laserfiche program, which the city also currently uses. This was at no additional cost, she said.
“It has modernized our court processes, created consistency in electronic forms … and improved access to justice,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said fully transitioning to a paperless court should conclude in the next biennium. The process began in 2023. Ramirez said converting all of the paper files to a digital format has been a long process as the court has thousands of files to scan and upload to Laserfiche.
Ramirez said court staff also plan to work with the Yelm Police Department to train officers to better understand court processes and procedures. Ramirez said these training sessions would occur in February and would include the city prosecutor and court staff to help officers understand what the court does once officers issue citations.
Ramirez added other goals include building new partnerships, implementing a community court process and obtaining court grants to ensure justice in Yelm.
