County adopts short-term staffing plan after HR time-and-motion study of HB 7 18 impacts on tax office

A human resources time-and-motion study presented to the court found that HB 7 18—state legislation making dealer electronic submissions mandatory and shifting issuance responsibilities—produced a sharp increase in dealer (web-dealer) transactions and created processing bottlenecks for the county Tax Assessor-Collector's office.

Valeria Fernandez and HR colleagues summarized the analysis: web-dealer transactions rose from about 13,000 in 2024 to over 43,000 in 2025 after the July 1 implementation. HR reported that a title-verifier can process roughly 90 web-dealer transactions per day and accounting specialists average about 33 web-dealer transactions per hour, but that the web-dealer queue and limited state system feedback have caused resubmissions to re-enter at the back of the queue and generate processing delays.

HR recommended a mix of short- and long-term steps: continued approved overtime and reassignments, temporary staffing funded by vacancy savings, expanded cross-training, publication of weekly rejection trends to improve dealer accuracy, and three permanent new positions (two administrative specialist-intermediate title verifier positions and one accounting specialist-intermediate) to increase capacity. HR estimated the full-year fiscal cost of the three positions at approximately $2,207,000 (full-year impact) and a hiring timeline of roughly 8–12 weeks per position once approved.

Commissioner Butler moved and Commissioner Legeen (second) approved adding the three positions and instructed staff to identify contingency funds to pay for immediate hiring needs; the motion carried. Court members praised HR's thorough analysis and noted that the action addresses an expeditious staffing need tied to a state-mandated operational change.

Next steps: staff to identify contingency funding and return with budget action/authorization and post position vacancies for hiring.