OKEECHOBEE — Sharon Robertson, clerk of the circuit court and comptroller, is running for reelection. Robertson, who was born and raised in Okeechobee, began her career with the office of the Okeechobee County Clerk of Court in 1984 when she became a deputy clerk. In 1989, she was promoted to supervisor of the criminal division and, in the 1990s, also became supervisor over misdemeanors, clerk to the board of county commissioners, juvenile, traffic, circuit, civil, jury management, child support and dependency divisions.

When Gloria Ford retired in 1995, Robertson, along with three others who worked in the department, submitted applications to the governor, and she was appointed to replace Ford to fill her position until her term ended. She was elected for the term beginning in 1997. She had one opponent in that election, and until this year when Jerry Bryant entered the race, she has run unopposed.

“I have been here 36 years and know the office from the bottom to the top,” she said. “I guess you could say I have on-the-job training, but I am also certified by the Supreme Court as a clerk of the circuit court and comptroller. When I did it, it was 360 hours of training. Now, it is only 240. I maintain my certification each year, too. That’s 36 hours.”

Robertson’s favorite part of the job has always been the interaction with the citizens. “I like helping them,” she said. “I’ve always enjoyed the customer service part of my job.”

“Making Okeechobee a passport office is the thing I am most proud of in my career,” she said. “It took me two years to get that. Before, you had to drive out of town. I worked for two years with the U.S. Department of State, and finally was designated.”

When asked what she least liked about the job, she laughed and said, “I never liked reading verdicts. There was just something about standing up there with all eyes upon you, and you know what the verdict is already. I don’t know. There was just something about that.”

Robertson is proud of the technology instituted at the courthouse in recent years. Turbo Court is one example. This is an interactive online program, which assists the public in completing Supreme Court-approved legal forms to be filed with the court. It is a do-it-yourself electronic forms service (for a fee) and does not require an attorney. With the service, paperwork can be completed for domestic violence protection, dissolution of marriage with children, dissolution of marriage without children and landlord-tenant disputes. “This really helps people who don’t have the funds to hire an attorney,” she said.

They have also set up property fraud alerts on the site. “How often do you hear about someone having their house sold out from under them?” she asked. “Or someone putting a lien on someone’s home without their knowledge? This is free. You just go on our website and enter your information. It will alert you right away if anyone files anything on your property.”

The courthouse is paperless for official records and uses e-Reporting and e-Filing. She is hoping to get the finance department to use e-Finance as well, she said, and is working on that with the county administrator.

They have also added e-Notify. She said since most people have smartphones now, they thought it would be helpful to utilize this. This program will notify you of upcoming court hearings.

This year, because of COVID-19, Robertson and her staff have had to implement new ways for the courts to do business, because life cannot just come to a standstill at a courthouse. Somehow, things must get done despite the pandemic. Now they do virtual marriage licenses, virtual marriages, and with tax deeds and foreclosures, she has implemented online bidding. “This way, you don’t even have to come to the courthouse, you can bid from the comfort of your own home or McDonald’s, or they can bid from the computer terminals set up at the courthouse,” she said. Another thing they are changing is the Notice of Commencement forms. Originally, you picked those up at the building department, brought it to the clerk’s office to be recorded and then took it back to the building department. While the courthouse was closed to the public, they had a box outside for people to leave the notices in, but it took time for the exchanges to happen. They are working with the building department so they can accept the Notice of Commencement and send it to recording it right there, and the clerk’s office will send it right back while the customer is still standing there. That way the customer won’t have to go back and forth anymore.

Robertson works closely with the tax collector as well, and they are trying to get their two software programs to interface, so the tax collector’s office can just upload data to the clerk’s office and there won’t be any more retyping. She also wants to make things easier for customers who have to go back and forth between the clerk’s office and the tax collector’s office or driver’s license office by putting a deputy clerk at the tax collector’s office.

In addition, they had to set up Zoom rooms for court cases during the shutdown for the coronavirus. “We are the ones who have to mark the evidence, so if they are appearing by Zoom, we can’t physically mark evidence because we don’t have it. I set up an evidence email. They email the evidence to us, and we print it out. That way we can mark it, and that has worked well. The attorneys pay for the copies.”

Most recently, she and her department have worked night and day for weeks on the CARES Act to ensure that local small businesses and workers get the money they need. “We know they need that money,” she said. “We don’t mind doing everything we can to help them get it. We are really just the paymasters. We just want to make sure it’s done right so if our county is audited, no one has to pay that money back. Would you want to tell someone they had to pay that money back? I sure wouldn’t. We are doing our best to make sure it’s done right and everyone who needs the money gets it.”

Although she has worked for the clerk’s office for 36 years, Robertson said she has never had to make so many quick decisions in her life as she has throughout the COVID situation. “It just changed every single day, but we survived.”