REGISTER OF DEEDS

OPERATING AUTHORITY AND PURPOSE

The Register of Deeds office is established in the Constitution of the State of Wisconsin, with its duties prescribed by Wisconsin Statutes, predominately Section 59.43. The office is the custodian of real estate recordings, vital records and Uniform Commercial Code filings for Racine County. The real estate records maintained in the office form the foundation of the County's Geographic Information System, which is maintained by the Planning & Development Department.

EVALUATION OF PERFORMANCE MEASURES

One of our goals for this year was to smoothly, efficiently and cost-effectively record the 60,000-plus documents presented for recording. Although the office is currently staffed to process 170 real estate documents each day, the actual number of documents being processed is in excess of 200 per day.

We have added 3 additional financial institutions to our Electronic Recording System, bringing the total number of submitters to 5. We are currently on pace to record 2,100 electronic documents this year. Discussions are continuing with additional local, regional and national lenders to increase the utilization of this system.

We also participated with the Department of Revenue in the design of a system that will facilitate the processing of electronic deeds and real estate transfer return forms. This system represents the next phase of development of the electronic recording system.

2005 GOALS AND BUDGET STRATEGIES

• Continue participation in the development of national data standards necessary to implement and maintain electronic recording of real estate documents.
• Expand implementation of the electronic recording system. Our year-end goal is to increase electronic document submission from the current 2% of all documents submitted to 10%.
• Work with the Information Systems Department to maximize office efficiency and public access via technology.