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Utah County commissioners, from left, Amelia Powers Gardner, Bill Lee and Tom Sakievich listen during a public meeting in Provo on Wednesday, June 16, 2021.

Connor Richards, Daily Herald

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Utah County Commissioner Tom Sakievich speaks during a public meeting in Provo on Wednesday, June 16. 

 

Connor Richards, Daily Herald

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Utah County commissioners Amelia Powers Gardner, left, and Bill Lee listen during a public meeting in Provo on Wednesday, June 16. 

 

Connor Richards, Daily Herald

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Utah County Commissioner Tom Sakievich sifts through documents during a public meeting in Provo on Wednesday, June 16.

Connor Richards, Daily Herald

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Utah County commissioners, from left, Amelia Powers Gardner, Bill Lee and Tom Sakievich listen during a public meeting in Provo on Wednesday, June 16. 

Connor Richards, Daily Herald

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The Utah County Commission voted on Wednesday to approve a staffing plan change adding 17 full-time employees to the Utah County Recorder’s Office.

The proposal will allow the Recorder’s Office, which maintains and indexes real estate property documents, to hire six employees doing “true recording,” seven employees mapping and two employees working in customer service.

Before the change was approved on Wednesday, the Recorder’s Office had a 34-employee staffing plan, which is fewer employees than the office had before the 2008 recession.

The commission initially considered the staffing plan change proposal during its June 9 meeting, but Commissioner Bill Lee requested more time to analyze Recorder’s Office data to see if the staffing increase would be necessary.

On Wednesday, Lee said he “did find some areas that were concerning to me,” including that the proposal would give the Utah County Recorder’s Office the same number of employees as the Salt Lake County Recorder’s Office.

“For me, in reviewing the numbers and having the conversations, I’m not prepared to go at this (staffing) level,” said Lee. “I would prefer that we do a step, a revisit, and analyze where we’re at to see if our numbers are holding.”

But Commissioner Amelia Powers Gardner, formerly Utah County Clerk/Auditor, noted that the Salt Lake County Recorder’s Office has an approximately $6 million budget, while the Utah County Recorder’s Office has about a $3 million budget.

“So they (Salt Lake County) have about 51 (employees on the staffing plan), but they also have double the budget, which means that they have the ability to record documents significantly more efficiently because they have access to technology that we don’t have,” Gardner said. “So I have a hard time comparing us to them in the fact that they literally have twice the access to efficiencies and technology.”

Gardner continued, “And so I think we’re comparing apples and oranges when we compare ourselves to Salt Lake County, as far as how many documents they can record. Because I can tell you, if I had an extra $3 million, we could do things a lot more efficiently in a lot of areas.”

Gardner also noted that the new employee positions would be funded using fees collected by the Recorder’s Office, not taxpayer dollars, as the result of a 2019 law that the Utah State Legislature passed “because the recorder’s offices in the counties across the state did not have the resources that they needed in order to do their job adequately.”

“And so this is us kind of us reacting to that fee change,” she said.

Commissioner Tom Sakievich said he agreed that there is “uniqueness” between Utah and Salt Lake counties that makes comparisons difficult and said he supported the staffing plan change.

The commission voted 2-1 to approve the change, with Gardner and Sakievich voting in favor and Lee voting against it.

All three commissioners said they would support a future review of the Recorder’s Office to ensure that the office is meeting performance and productivity metrics.

Utah County Recorder Andrea Allen told the commissioners that she would work to make improvements in efficiency and performance in the office.

“So I just wanted you to know that we’re doing our best, we’re working hard,” Allen said.