Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It is time now for community connection and to do today we have an
X Smith. How are you doing, young lady? Great? How are
you doing? I'm doing okay. What's going on down at the courthouse?
Oh, I'm just kind of wanted to talk about some stuff going on in
our office. And you know our office we do land records, We record
documents, mortgages, deeds come in the other side of the office. Is
the bookkeeping side? So yet too two for the price of one, that's
correct. Yes're efficient, Yes we are. We're very busy and have a
great group of ladies that work for me, so they take really good care
of the office. Today, I just kind of, you know, would
like to talk about the land side. Let's do the land side, not
the landslide, folks, and side of the office, and go ahead,
what are you got well, and just kind of talk about, you know,
how many documents we take in in our office. Last year we took
in eleven thousand documents. That's why. Yes, that is that is deeds,
oil and gas and like said, mortgages, and thirty six hundred of
that was E recording, which is Electronic filing allows abstractors different banks to e
file and they do not have to come in our office. They do not
have to mail in anything. It just comes in by way of you know,
e filing. We file the documents and they get it right away.
Wow. That sounds quick and easy and again a vision it is. And
especially during the COVID period, it just blew up. I mean we got
you know, it just doubled the documents coming in. It was a life
changing you know for well for some folks, I imagine, you know,
it was like get her done or get her done, and the only way
to get her done was to learn how to get on that computer and do
it exactly exactly, had a process with a lot of people going that way.
Yes, wow, that is amazing and one of those things that at
first you might have a little trepidade, little little fear, but once you
go through it, it's like nothing that it's easy exactly. And also if
we have to and the girls have to work from home, and our software
allows for us to you know, take in documents at the home. If
they have a computer at home, we have a log in. So that's
been really efficient for the office. Just in case you never know. Indeed,
now with this type of electronic software that you use and what have you,
comes in pretty handy. Folks don't realize that you really do need to
have a record of things. You correct have to because if there's a dispute,
no matter how minor, this pretty much tells the tale of the tape.
Correct. And also, you know there's something that's been coming about is
a land work land record alert system? Oh, tell us about that.
Yeah, And we have Kelpro that's located in Duncan. That's our software vendor.
They have have a monitoring system that's included with our software. Okaycounty Records
dot com. If you go onto their website you can sign up and this
is a free monitoring system. What you do is typing your name or your
legal description, create a free account, click on the monitoring and sign up
with an email. So anytime a transaction is recorded in our office, you
will get an email. And it is from the time they sign up un
till after. It's not anything previous. Wow, so this is really good.
Yes, it is great, little cracker, Yes, it is great.
Little keeping everything up to up to date and keep it nice and breath
and that's correct. And now as county clerks were mandated by state law to
take in a document and we do not police it. If it meets the
state statutes of what's required on a document, we have to take it.
So if they're notified that, you know, hey, this is not my
document, this is not my deed, they need to go to the sheriff's
office, you know, by a police report, and then contact either an
abstract or an attorney to handle this. We can't we can't take the document
back out, but there is steps to proceed. You're not there to enforce,
you're there to pre career. That's correct, record correct. And in
Washington County, I believe there's just maybe been a couple of incidents that's gone
on, but I know, you know, in other counties this has gone
on, So I do know. And the County Clerk's Association is trying to
pass legislation to enforce you know, the notary, making sure the notary is
abidened by the law, and that that did not get passed through, you
know, last session. So we're going to try again this year, you
know, or I should say next year. So we'll keep trying to make
a little enforced. That would be good because you know, you hear the
term rubber stamp. Well, you don't want that notary to be rubber state.
That is correct. So if there's some penalties, I it shdded tears
some hopefully, yes, Oh gosh, well you know that kind of clears
things up. You know what. I remember not long ago we were talking
about how you were taking credit cards. Yes, and for some folks that
was a whole new deal. Yes, it was, and they're like,
well, you don't need to check, you don't need the cashier's tax I
can just do. Yeah, you can just do on the plastic. You
can. You've done this so that it makes things easier for everyone. That's
correct. Back in November twenty nineteen, we started the credit card system,
that's right. Since then we have changed companies which allows and the percentage rate
is three point five. So on a twenty dollars document, it's seventy cents
versus our old company that we used it was two dollars minimum per document recorded.
So this saves the taxpayer some money if they want to come in and
charge, and we we get quite a bit. Is some people kind of
save their skin? Yes, it does yes, yes. And also this
new system that we got, it allows for Apple pay, you know some
of the Google pays things I don't understand, but everyone else does exactly.
Your staff knows it well. But yeah, I don't use it, but
probably will before too logs. Yes. And also I'm going to touch on
the monitoring system monitoring. Yes, if we could go back to that.
If anybody wants to sign up for that, feel free to contact the county
Clerk's office our numbers nine eight three three seven two eight for zero. The
staff or myself can help step them through, or they can come in the
office and we will step them through for a free sign up. Do you
have anything on your website there it did cut, Yes, we do.
Start dot org. We're under your tab that talks about the monitorings. Yes,
it does. Yes, if you go to the county clerk tab and
it says little insert right there, and then there's a little you can click
on okay county records and sign up. Also, wow, that's great.
How much does it cost? It's free? Got free? Yes, yes,
and it's included with the software, so there's not an additional charge,
which is very good too. Well, dang, you got to come by
more often. Yeah, looks like hearing stuff like that. Yes, Oh,
my goodness sakes, they treating you well down there, Yes they are.
You're staying out of your way, Yes they are. Now, we've
got a great group of commissioners say that, yeah, because they do.
They care about everybody. They do. We're a budget board. We've been
a budget board since I believe two thousand and nine, and that has worked
wonderfully. I've been you know, before I was county clerk, I was
first deputy, been in the office since nineteen ninety and went to the meetings.
Everybody's always worked well. And right now we're in the process of,
you know, working with our final budget. We're getting the school budgets,
which is a starting you know, the for the taxes. There are steps
that it takes to get to the tax part where Melissa sends out the taxes
so you get them, ready, Melissa. Yeah, we get the school
levies and yes, and then get it to Todd, and then Todd gives
the tax row to Melissa, and Melissa sins everybody out, I gotta run
that thing down the hall, don't you. Yes, we do. Now,
if anybody has any questions, again, you gave out a phone number.
Can you repeat that for us? Yeah, the number nine three seven
two eight for zero in the website and Okay County Records, no apologize.
County Courthouse dot Org is where you can go to the county clerks and there's
a little answert right there. And then the other website is Okaycounty Records dot
com. Okay, so you have no excuse not to get a hold of
the correct Yes, I want to thank you for being with us. Thank
you for having me Toms great having you