County recorder presents largely unchanged budget and urges fraud-alerts tied to state recording system

Jane Schultz, Winneshiek County recorder, told the board that her office’s budget is “pretty much kept the same as last year” and contains only modest changes tied to a three-year equipment cycle. She said routine recording activity and modest price increases have driven workload but not large new expenditures.

Schultz described Iowa’s statewide electronic-recording system, noting it has allowed electronic submission and public searching of land records for about two decades. “You can also search all those,” she said, describing the system’s public‑search capability and why a statewide fraud-alert there would be useful. Schultz said some counties have adopted their own fraud-alert systems but that vendor solutions can be costly to set up and maintain.

Board members asked about notary-related title fraud and what tools are available. Schultz said other states have pursued measures such as tighter notary tracking and keeping ID copies at the time of transfer; she characterized those as legislative approaches worth monitoring but noted they are not yet statewide policy in Iowa. She cautioned that a fraud alert often informs owners after a deed is already recorded, meaning remediation can be lengthy.

The recorder emphasized cost constraints for smaller counties: she said vendor-provided fraud-alert services can run about $10,000 to set up and roughly $3,000 per month, making county-level deployment difficult without state support. The board did not take formal action during the presentation; members discussed forwarding concerns to the county’s legislative contacts and the recorders association for possible statewide approaches.

The board will consider whether to request additional analysis or to press for legislative remedies; no vote or formal directive on a fraud-alert system occurred at the meeting.