Friday, April 4, 2003 | 10:48 a.m.
The Clark County Recorder's Office should start answering the phone again Monday after nearly a month of complaints from the public and other county offices, officials said.
On March 13, Clark County Recorder Frances Deane issued a press release noting that due to a work backlog, the office would be "temporarily reorganizing its staff and technical functions."
The release was actually an announcement that Deane had ordered her staff to stop answering or responding to phone calls. Instead, callers to the office got a recording that instructed them to come to the office in the Clark County Government Center downtown.
That wasn't a viable option for the many people who are homebound or thousands of miles away but need official documents from the office. Those people and employees of other county offices were infuriated.
In the last three weeks, hundreds of phone calls to the recorder's office have been routed to the Clark County clerk or assessor instead. Those positions, like the recorder, are elected posts, and those officers have their own independent staffs.
The three offices work jointly and independently to document and process critical legal documents, including birth and death records, and court, property and marriage information. Though the duties of the offices often appear to be a maze of bureaucracy to those new to the system, they are essential for buying a house, providing proof of identity and other basic needs.
County Clerk Shirley Parraguirre's staff is getting most of the phone calls, often from irate would-be customers of the recorder's office. In an angry e-mail to Deane, Parraguirre recounted tales of customers who tried without success to get information from the recorder.
In one case, a British soldier needed a certified copy of his marriage in Las Vegas. He was deployed in a classified area and could not simply leave a call-back number, Parraguirre said, which is one of the few options the staff in the clerk's office have to give customers.
"He became irate, indicating that he was going to war for our country and this was the service he got," Parraguirre said in the e-mail.
Parraguirre said she can do little to help these county customers. By statute, the recorder's office has to respond to those inquiries.
She said her staff is upset that they cannot respond to many of the requests flooding her switchboard -- dozens of extra calls daily.
One woman from Germany, married here, "said people should not go to Vegas anymore because they can't get copies of the marriage certificates," Parraguirre said.
"To me, this is absolutely absurd," Parraguirre said. "As hard as everyone in the county tries to provide good customer service, this brings everyone down."
County administrative officials have no direct oversight over the offices because the positions are elected and independent. Nonetheless, they have expressed concern over the lack of phone service for the recorder's office.
"We have had a number of calls," Assistant County Manager Rick Holmes said. "I think the impacts are very real.
"This reflects on the county as a whole in terms of customer service," he said.
Deane, who took over a troubled office in January from former Recorder Judith Vandever, said she was forced to take her employees off phone duties to put them on recording documents coming into the office, filing those documents and taking care of weeks of backlog.
"I took over an office that was extremely dysfunctional," Deane said. "Keep in mind that the volume of (home ownership) documents has literally doubled because of the interest rates being so low."
She said her office is working through a daily volume of 5,200 land records and 1,000 marriages -- "more than ever before" -- and has processed about 250,000 documents in the last six weeks.
"When we saw the volume we were up against, what do you do?" Deane asked. "I agonized over this. We were going to war. But I honestly did not have a choice.
"It was either answer the phone or get these documents recorded."
Deane said her effort has cut what used to be three-hour waits at the recorder's office to 30 minutes or less. Also, she said she has almost eliminated the mandatory overtimes that used to plague her office.
Deane said she has not been able, despite multiple attempts through the phone company, to get the phones switched into a voice-mail system familiar to anyone who calls many government offices.
Deane said her office should start taking phone calls again by Monday, thanks in part to the county agreeing to fill vacant positions. Assistant County Manager Rick Holmes said the county also has authorized hiring several temporary workers using the recorder's annual budget, and is allowing Deane to reassign some staff members within her office.
Deane said she believes the county officials complaining about the current situation have a deeper motive.
"While I believe the complaints are valid, I believe there is a certain amount of politics at play," she said. Deane is referring to a proposal now on the table in Carson City that would combine the county recorder's and clerk's offices into one, central function, eliminating one elected position.
Parraguirre and Holmes said that isn't their concern. Parraguirre added that she doesn't even have a formal opinion on the merger. Her concern, she said, is focused on service.
"These are people ... who really need service and Clark County is doing an injustice to them," Parraguirre said in her memo to Deane. "It is totally wrong for county offices not to be available by phone to the public."
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