Episode I: ROD scambles to make 5% and 10% cuts in budget!

Yes, I can make a cut or two in my budget. I have a contract I'm dying to get rid of against recommendation of county staff. I will not go into details, but after I nip and tuck in a few places it is still as ways to 5% ( around $170,000). 10% ($340,000) cuts would mean staff cuts.

I appreciate that several commissioners visited my office in the Spring and I smothered them with details about the Deeds office. In 1990, our office had 27 employees. In 2004, our office has 30 staff members and a High Point office (the 3 additional employees). Real Estate documents have from 264,000 to 656,000; 10,000 more vital records recorded a year; and processing twice as many cancellations (15,000 to 33,000 a year). To name a few.

Technology changes over time has helped a bit, but those changes were based on older technology whose life is about lost. Our staff needs many of the resources in our current budget to not only "hold serve" or "make par" for all you US Open folks); but to make serious progress in our office that is desperately needed. We are reorganizing in a way that will allow us to keep our current staff levels, add 2 needed positions (only 1 is county funded) this year, and hopefully increase our work volumne much more in the coming years without huge increases in county monies.

I'll go into the progressive changes in the next few days.