Bastrop County commissioners on Monday passed a resolution opposing a Texas Supreme Court-backed system that would make judicial records accessible to the public online as soon as this fall.

The system, called re:SearchTX, was approved by the Texas Supreme Court in 2016 and will allow judges, attorneys and the public to look up court records from all 254 Texas counties in an online portal. It closely mimics a federal system called PACER, or Public Access to Court Electronic Records, which maintains federal court documents.

The Texas Office of Court Administration has been tasked with controlling the database.

A total of 95 Texas counties have passed resolutions opposing the new system.

Bastrop County clerks said Monday it would deny them control of their own records, placing them in the care of the state and putting private, personal information in the hands of the public. They also said it would rob their offices of critical revenue since clerks currently charge $1 per page for public records.

"Rose (Pietsch) and I are bonded. We’ve taken an oath. And we are responsible for protecting those records and making sure that sensitive data does not get out," District Clerk Sarah Loucks said Monday of herself and County Clerk Rose Pietsch. "If a state agency has control of our records, there will be no accountability."

Pietsch said many probate records include dates of birth and death, as well as partial Social Security numbers.

Loucks was concerned about individuals who have their records expunged. If court information is already made available to the public, there’s no way to take it back, she said.

"The OCA would be taking our records and putting them online for the public without any filter," Loucks said.

But the Office of Court Administration said the Supreme Court has been working diligently to ensure private information remains protected. While it has rolled out the system already for judges and plans to make it available for attorneys of record, public access has been delayed while the agency works out the kinks.

The review includes determining which records will be made available and when, how much they will cost, what happens when records are expunged and what measures should be taken to prevent cyberattacks, among other things.’

The Supreme Court "was really careful to try to have an appropriate balance between privacy versus access," said David Slayton, administrative director of the Office of Court Administration. "From a transparency standpoint, there is no way for the public to know about cases except to go in during the time frame the office is open. This system would give them the ability."

Any private individual can already obtain copies of civil and criminal court records through the clerk’s office.

"Court documents are the most open documents in government," Slayton said. "They are required by constitutional law and statute to be publicly available at all times."

The Office of Court Administration ensured, too, that clerks would still see revenue from the online system. While re:SearchTX users will not have to pay an access fee, Slayton said, they will be charged 10 cents per page to view documents — money that will go to the office where the document was filed.

Since 2015, all Texas county clerks have been required to file court documents electronically through a system maintained by Tyler Technologies. That same company designed the re:SearchTX system, using electronically filed documents starting in January 2016, when the Supreme Court approved the new portal, Slayton said.

Despite reassurances from the Office of Court Administration about the safety of the new system, many Texas clerks still have their doubts.

"Obviously there are some real problems with making these court records available to anybody that has a computer for whatever reason they might want to use them," Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape said Monday, before commissioners unanimously approved the resolution opposing the new system.

Both the county and district clerks in Bastrop County agree that attorneys should have access to records online and plan to provide that in the coming months, Loucks said.