WASHINGTON CO. CLERK ANNETTE SMITH

Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welk me. It is time now for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust. And first Fridays we always talked to our friends at the county and.

Then that's Methy is here with us today. How are you doing, Annette?

I'm doing great. How are you Tom?

Well, it's always great to have you on board. You got so much going on here. It's been a busy fall.

Yes it has.

Yes, I understand. We have a couple of per cent IT bills. It take effects shortly that they could affect people here in Washington.

County, and that is correct, a couple of them that take effect November first this year, one of them, and the County Clerks Association has worked for like ten years to get this passed. It is the documents that come in our office, and it's regarding the margins on the documents. Right now it's one inch on the top and then half inch on the sides, and effective November first, it'll be two inches on the top one inch on the

It's like, can you please make your way to you get this day garage so we can do our jobs better.

Yes, So that was Cenebille at fifty seven. It's called increased margins for County Clerk documents. So this is a very important one that finally got passed.

Well. Good, then that way you don't have your stamp covering up everything needs to be that it's correct.

Yes, and also when it's when we don't have room. It allows the county clerks to charge a non conforming fee, which is very expensive for oil and gas companies. Yeah, it's twenty five dollars for the first page, ten for each additional so it can.

Get costly, but it allows us.

You know, We'reshton County is pretty good about not trying to charge that at all. But I know the counties in western Oklahoma that have a lot of oil and gas.

They just have to do it.

That is correct.

Yes, Wow, what's the other one is coming down the pike.

The other one is sin Bill five five six. It is a notary Enforcement Act that Tulca County Clerk was involved in getting this bill written and passed a lot of fraudulent notaries out there, you know, where people want to you know, go and have you know, like a deed. Somebody can sign off the deed, get a fraudulent notary to say, hey, you know, they will notarize the document. Somebody will come in and file a document, you know, and change ownership. So this kind of gives like as

Business, do not be a naughty notary.

Correct.

So some states have a little bit more enforcement where it's a felony ten thousand dollars you know.

Fine, so kind of working on that. But this is a very good start.

It is a good start.

Yeah, you gotta start somewhere here and that way these people know that you're on the radar.

That is correct.

We do check that and we can go online and check a notary if need be. Rushing County really doesn't have this issue. I know Tulsa County has had some issues and some other counties.

So that's why.

This was because we play fair here.

That's correct.

Yes, tell us.

About the clerk's office for the folks who you know. They hear, okay, well I got to go to the county Clerk's office. Well, the clerk's office does a lot of things. I was amazed. Get a lot under your.

Umbrellaut Yes, we do.

Besides filing deeds mortgages on the land side, we also do purchasing. We do the bidding for Washington County. We do the payroll for about one hundred and thirty five employees. We get together the budget. I work with Melissa the treasure really close on getting our budget done, and then we work with the assessor on you know, the tax levies, and we do we sign up new.

Employees, We pay all bills.

For Washington County. So we're quite busy. And that's just a little bit of it.

Do you guys go through a lot of ink, Yes, we do, Yes.

And the county clerk also serves as secretary to a lot of boards, tax rew excise, budget board commissioners, and so it's busy, but it's very interesting.

I've always liked it.

Wow, that is amazing, you know, and of course you've made it over the year. It's a lot easier to do transactions too, as a lot of county offices have for the longest time you had to write a check or bring cash. But now the plastic works and that's probably expedited of things will a bit.

Yes, it has. That's gone over really well the last few years. I think we started taking credit cards back in twenty nineteen, yeah, November, and then we've just increased with you know how like Apple pay and some of the other stuff that I'm not too familiar with.

Don't use. But it allows you know, your customers.

Yes, and somebody can call in and request a copy and they can give us their credit card, you know, online and we can charge them, you know for their copy because it is a dollar per page, and.

We can you know, forward them their document.

Wonderful.

You know this when you talk about making it easier, you know that people they feel kind of threatened a little bit when they have to do anything they have to do with walking into a courthouse or walking into any kind of a government building. It's actually once you get past security, it's pretty welcoming.

Yes, Yes, we try to make it welcome, so.

That's there for everybody's benefit there, Yes, and that's usually a pretty quick process.

But how long you been doing this.

And I've been in the County Clerk's office for thirty four years.

Oh, you're not old enough to be anywhere.

Thirty four years.

And then I've been county clerk since June of twenty nineteen.

So I do get sworn back in January first.

Huh next year, so I'm looking forward to another four years.

Well, that's great, that is great. And if folks need.

To find out what's going on, we have a wonderful website that's pretty easy to get around in. So in case they have questions that may come to your office, how do we find that?

Go to courthouse dot org and you can look up any office. You can look up county clerk, and it will tell us, you know, our filing fees for documents, what is required for purchasing forbids, how to contact us now?

Now the bid thing.

If you're somebody who does business and you've never gone through the process before, go to the website before you start asking questions, and toll answer most of them for you.

Won't it Yes, it will, yes.

And you can do a little bit of research on there too.

But you know, like I said, it's it's one of those things folks that you're going to have to have contact with once in a while, and it's nice to know the people who you're going to do business with, and then that you're one of the nicest.

Folks I ever met.

So thank you.

I'm just telling folks right now. It's cool. It's all right now. You're very busy. I mean people you got in your office.

I love six six yes, and they work really great and we all get along. It's enjoyable to come to work every day good and it's cross trained also, the girls are cross trained so they can work. But keeping our landsides so for shorthanded somebody can fill in at all times, you know something, that's.

The wisest way to go. And when you've got just a short staff, everybody knows a little bit of everything and get her done just as well as anybody.

That is correct.

And then sometimes if somebody has to work from home because of a sick child or something. With our software allows us to index or take in some documents on the land side, so that's been very helpful through our software vendors.

Well, yes, yes, well so do you get to talk with the commissioners much except for when you know you've got to do the bills and everything.

Yeah, talk to them almost every day. They're great to work with, they really are. They are very receptive. I mean, they just work well. All of all. The elected officials were great.

Well, that is good. It is good. And once again, what's the name of.

The website County Courthouse dot org. How, Yes, very easy.

Yes, And they can get a hold of my office at clerk at County Courthouse dot org.

It's very easy.

Everybody in the office gets that email besides the individual emails.

But that's really cool. Han thattt thank you. Is there anything else we need to bring up here?

Yeah, THEO Yeah, there's a couple of other deals and center. Bill two twelve, which was passed last year, took effect November first of last year.

It's the ownership affidavit.

It is required by each deed that the new buyer has to sign off that they are legal to own property.

And this is the state of Oklahoma.

So you can get the forms on the Attorney General's website and call our.

Office if you have any questions.

But it must be attached to any deed change of ownership and it has to be notarized. My office doesn't do any notaries since we do record the documents in our office, so we asked that they have it all notarized.

And there are plenty of notaries out there that a big old piece of papers.

Yes, yes, yes, And then a kind of an update on the monitoring system. I think touch base last year with and last year I did have a green card that went out with the tax statements explaining the monitoring system. It is through kelpro through Okaycounty Records dot com. Kel Proer software vendor does manage that, but it's just where you can sign up. You can be notified of any transaction that takes place on your property or under your name.

And if anybody you.

Know needs help, more than welcome to call my office or email us and say how do I sign up? We do have some instructions that we can email on how to do that. We we had a really great response last year when the cards went out and.

So very resourceful.

Yes, yes, this year I won't be sending out any cards because it went out so you know, for to so many people.

But it is still available.

Okay, So once again, just get a hold of a hold of an et there through the website and you can get that taken care of We're just making a phone call and get that taken care of it as well.

That's correct.

Hey, thanks for being with us.

Thank you.