County recorder asks for confidential assistant, pushes digitization and fee review to bolster revenue recovery

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…