Utah County Recorder Andrea told commissioners on Oct. 14 she has no new budget asks for 2026 but raised concerns about the county's plans for using recorder fee reserves and the need to modernize recording equipment and software.

Andrea said the recorder's special fund balance (from recording fees) stood at about $3.1 million at the end of 2024 and that the office is using that fund balance and current fees to cover operating costs and ongoing programming work needed to migrate legacy systems.

The recorder said a key piece of validator equipment that stamps and verifies recorded documents recently failed and replacements are scarce; shipping and repair costs for legacy hardware are high. Andrea said the recorder's office is paying for multi-year programming work to migrate from an outdated codebase and that those investments are the reason the fund balance exists. She asked to be included in records-center and Saratoga Springs office planning and warned that using the recording fund for unrelated purposes without a defined methodology could be inappropriate.

Details: Recorder staff and the county attorney's office previously sought guidance from the state auditor and county legal staff about allowable uses of recording fees. County counsel told the commission on Oct. 14 that recorder fees may pay the fully burdened cost of providing recorder services, including internal service costs such as legal, IT and auditing support, provided a defensible methodology allocates overhead. Andrea emphasized the county must avoid an arbitrary transfer approach and said she was willing to discuss a principled allocation formula.

Commissioners acknowledged the recorder's concerns and said they would follow up about records-center space at Saratoga Springs, programming modernization and equipment replacements. Andrea asked to be notified of final space and functional decisions for the new records facility and said she would work with IT and budget staff on options for validator replacement and system migration.