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Tillamook County clerk proposes higher fees for marriage services, passport photos and appeals; commissioners approve
Summary
The board approved Order No. 25‑007 updating the county clerk fee schedule, including a $60 marriage license fee, a $117 fee to solemnize marriages, increased amendment and waiting‑period waiver fees, a raised passport photo fee and a new property valuation appeal filing fee.
Tillamook County commissioners on Jan. 22 approved Order No. 25‑007, which establishes new and revised fees for services provided by the county clerk's office.
The changes, presented by Tillamook County Clerk Christine Neistat, include increasing the marriage license fee to $60, beginning to collect a $117 fee the clerk may charge to solemnize marriages in the clerk's office, and raising the fee to waive the three‑day waiting period from $10 to $25. The clerk also proposed raising the fee to amend an issued marriage license from $25 to $50, charging $10 to replace the decorative marriage certificate packet, increasing passport photo fees from $15 to $20, and adopting a $40 filing fee for property valuation appeals.
Neistat said the clerk's office is required by statute to provide many of these services and that counties set related fees under ORS 205.320. She told commissioners the county's passport photo charge is set by nonfederal providers at about $20 and that the office can collect only the federal passport application fee when processing passports. "So we can only collect 35 for that," she said, referring to the federally set portion of the passport fee. The proposed passport photo increase is intended to recover higher costs for camera, printer, and paper, and to reflect prevailing local pricing.
On amendments to marriage licenses, Neistat said correcting a license — for example, to fix a parent's name or country of birth — can take several hours because the office must complete paperwork and submit corrections to the state registrar. "It takes, like, 4 to 5 hours to do that amendment," she said, supporting an increase to $50 to better reflect staff time and materials.
Neistat estimated the clerk's office issues roughly 250 marriage licenses annually and noted the office has maintained mail‑in licensing practices that began during the COVID‑19 pandemic; some licenses come from out of county or out of state. Commissioners discussed the degree to which the marriage service is subsidized by the general fund and thanked Neistat for benchmarking other counties' fees.
The board approved the order after discussion and a motion; the action was recorded as carried.
Ending: The new fee schedule was approved at the Jan. 22 meeting and will be implemented by the clerk's office; the transcript indicates that some fees reflect market benchmarking and an intent to recover more of the clerk office's operating costs, while other elements will continue to be subsidized in whole or part by the county general fund.
