Broward County courts add new digital payment method with PayIt

Citizens in every community want options to choose from, and Broward County Clerk of Courts Brenda D. Forman is giving residents of her Florida community choices when it comes to paying citations and court fees. Introduced on Nov. 8, PayItBrowardClerk allows citizens to make payments using an online platform or mobile app.

“I am always looking to enhance how my constituents are able to pay their tickets, fines, fees and court costs”

– Broward County Clerk of Courts Brenda D. Forman

Along with giving residents the ability to make payments from their devices at any time and from anywhere, PayItBrowardClerk also includes a secure storage feature that ensures personal and payment information stays safe and can be easily accessed during future logins. Users can also view receipts for previous court payments and set up reminders for due dates to reduce the risk of delinquency.

This flexible and convenient digital citizen experience replicates the ease of use individuals have come to expect and appreciate from online retail experiences while also driving revenue collection for Broward County’s court system by speeding up the payment cycle—ensuring that the county government can quickly fund community projects that similarly improve citizens’ quality of life.

Forman decided to implement PayIt’s digital court payment platform based on the technological step forward it represents as the only mobile app experience available for Broward County residents to pay court and citation fees, complementing the existing payment portal on the Broward County Clerk of Courts website. Her decision was also grounded in data and seeing the results that other government agencies have achieved by partnering with PayIt.

Palm Beach County—Broward County’s northern neighbor—has consolidated numerous government services and payment systems, including court fees and citations. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Palm Beach County reported saving 37% of the revenue that it had been projected to lose due to office closures over a two-month period. The flexibility PayIt offers for quick adaptation to circumstances is accompanied by the ability to add new services to the digital government solution, such as the recent PayIt Express page Palm Beach County added to give citizens the ability to purchase self-service legal forms online.

Similarly, the City of St. Louis has scaled its digital presence since initially deploying payitSt.Louis in 2016. Including revenue generated with online and mobile court payments, the city has collected over $142.73 million in total online revenue to date. A 109% increase in use of payitSt.Louis in 2021 serves as proof that consolidating government services online has resonated with the city’s residents and contributed to the vision of a unified citizen experience held by the city and its agencies. St. Louis Collector of Revenue Gregory F.X. Daly recently accepted a Smart 50 Award on behalf of the city, recognizing payitSt.Louis as one of the most innovative and influential municipal-scale projects in the world as assessed by Smart Cities Connect.

What Palm Beach County, the City of St. Louis and PayIt’s other government partners have in common is their intention to make government services more efficient for agencies while saving residents time by making fewer trips to courthouses and other physical locations. This creates additional value by improving the relationship between agencies and residents.

These goals are directly included in Forman’s vision for Broward County, as new technology and open availability are creating a system that makes life easier for the county’s nearly 2 million citizens.

“Creating a robust digital infrastructure is key to modernizing government for agencies and citizens alike, and we are thrilled to share in Clerk Forman’s vision to give constituents even more options to interact with their local court system.”

– PayIt Chief Government Relations Officer Jeff Craver

PayItBrowardClerk is currently available to download in the Google Play store for Android devices as well as the Apple App Store for iOS devices.

About PayIt

PayIt is the leading SaaS provider of digital government services and payments. Through cloud-native technology, PayIt’s platform simplifies doing business with government agencies of any size by consolidating hundreds of services and payments into one connected experience for citizens. Within a 90-day launch period, PayIt delivers a platform that allows citizens to handle all of their essential government tasks (i.e. taxes, driving documents, permits, licenses, fines).

This innovative approach to government service delivery has garnered significant recognition in both the public and private sectors:

• GovTech 100 (2017-2021)
• Fast Company Innovation in Design Award (2019)
• StateScoop 50 State IT Innovation of the Year (2019-2020)
• NASCIO State IT Recognition finalist (2020)
• LocalSmart Awards (2020)
• Smart 50 Awards (2021)