County Recorder Kelly Sylvester and Chief Deputy Recorder Dakota Worth asked the county budget committee on Sept. 1 for funding for a confidential administrative assistant and outlined plans to digitize historic records, pursue a fee-schedule ordinance and consolidate online document services.

Worth said the office’s revenue fluctuates with the real estate market and recorded-document volume, and that some recovery depends on increasing online access to older, imaged records. “So much of our revenue stream is outside of our control. It's dependent on market volume and recorded documents that come through the office,” Worth said.

The request centers on one ongoing personnel addition: a confidential administrative assistant intended to capture institutional knowledge ahead of two anticipated retirements. “We are requesting funding for a confidential administrative assistant,” Worth said. The position’s uncapped salary estimate in the discussion was roughly $65,000 a year plus benefits; a loaded total cited in the meeting was about $101,704.

Why it matters: the recorder’s office said more than 90% of its operating costs are personnel-related, and the office expects retirements that together total roughly 41 years of service. Officials said adding an administrative position would allow the office to document processes and transfer knowledge without fully backfilling all vacated positions.

Budget and operational details

Worth told the committee the office is projecting modest revenue recovery after a 2021 peak, estimating roughly 5% year-over-year growth to date and noting September was on pace for about an 11% increase compared with the prior year’s September. The office has hired a cadastral mapper (Haley) in June to improve customer service for title companies, developers and municipalities.

Worth described a longstanding backlog of older, imaged but not indexed records—approximately 450,000 scanned documents, according to the presentation—that the office hopes to make searchable online. The office is piloting updated workflows and machine-learning tools to improve throughput and accuracy; Worth said accuracy for newer documents is in the low- to mid-90-percent range, with older documents yielding lower accuracy because of typefaces or stamps that obscure text.

The office requested a $3,000 increase in office-supplies funding (from $12,000 to $15,000) and said it was not asking for a travel-and-training increase at this time.

Fee schedule and system consolidation

Worth said the last comprehensive fee-schedule revision for recorder services took place on Jan. 15, 2015, and that the office plans a two-phase fee-analysis and ordinance process: a limited fee change to take effect Jan. 1, followed by a broader review of services that could be offered for fees. "Since that has to be done by ordinance, you're likely gonna see in the 2 phase approach," Worth said.

The office also described plans to replace and consolidate two public-facing products—Ready Web and Property Search—into a single system to improve public access and billing. Worth asked the committee to consider moving revenue associated with those services into the recorder’s budget rather than keeping it offset in Information Services (IS), saying the current arrangement masks the office's true revenue and expenses.

Transfers and implementation questions

Committee members asked whether the new administrative position would be prorated if hired mid-year; the office said that would be possible and discussed using attrition savings from unfilled vacated positions to offset costs.

Worth said the county Information Services team has been "instrumental" in implementing required updates to Property Watch and the recorder website. The recorder's office stressed that some digitization work—particularly for older records—will require final human review even after AI-assisted processing.

No formal action requested or taken

The presentation was a budget request and discussion; no motion or formal vote took place during the recorded segment. The committee discussed potential timing and next steps for ordinance language, personnel hiring and system transfers but did not adopt any formal decisions on those items during the session.

Ending

Recorder Kelly Sylvester said she would work with the committee and IS staff to identify where Ready Web and Property Search revenue should be recorded and to pursue a transparent transition. The office indicated it would return with ordinance language and any budget amendment requests as needed in the coming budget cycle.