Highland County recorder shares 2024 statistics during commission meeting

Chad McConnaughey presented his annual Highland County Recorder’s Office report to commissioners Brad Roades, Terry Britton and David Daniels at their Wednesday, Feb. 5 meeting.

After seeing declines in recorded documents the past two years — including a 21-percent drop from 2022 to 2023 — McConnaughey reported a marginal increase in 2024, with 5,716 documents recorded. That is a 1.1-increase over 2023 (5,450 documents), and of that total, nearly half (2,780 or 48.6 percent) were e-recorded.

The documents recorded in the county last year included 1,676 deeds, 1,247 mortgages, 1,066 releases of mortgages, 360 transfer on death affidavits, 251 affidavits and 153 easements, according to the report.

“We are on an uptick,” McConnaughey told commissioners. “We did have a kind of down year last year with recordings, and really, honestly, that's based solely on the economy. Whether property is moving or not really factors into how busy we are.”

McConnaughey added that “in correlation” to the 1.1-percent increase in filings, their revenues collected also went up 1.1 percent, with $368,771.80 collected last year (up $32,714.40 over 2023).

Of that total, the recorder said that half goes to the Ohio Housing Trust Fund ($183,183); $5 per transaction goes to the recorder’s equipment fund ($27,935); and the remainder goes into the county’s general fund ($157,653.80).

According to McConnaughey, $206,964 of the $368,771.80 collected in 2024 was paid through e-recording.

“E-recordings is about 56 percent of our workload,” McConnaughey said. “I foresee that continuing to go up. We even have local attorneys that are now using e-recording. They don't have to send somebody over here.

“The beauty of it is checks aren't wrong, so they haven't miscalculated something or missed a page, or something's different. We’re telling them what they owe us, and so it's pulled digitally, and we get an ACH [electronic money transfer]. There's no mail involved, so it's just a quicker process.”

For an update on his office’s projects, McConnaughey said that he and his staff’s ongoing efforts to back-index property information on 97 books from the 1980s, as part of a project approved in 2020, are 73-percent complete. They anticipate finishing the remaining 27 percent in 2025, ahead of the 2026 state-mandated deadline, he said.

As previously reported, commissioners voted in August 2020 to approve McConnaughey’s proposal in the amount of $154,895.81 for a vendor to scan, digitize and index county records back to 1980 and have them available online and to fund the project through the federal CARES Act monies.

“The only part we didn't pay them to do was indexing the acreages on all the properties,” McConnaughey said. “I felt like that was something we could do, our staff could do, and so we're just diligently working on that when we have free time. My staff does it when we're not doing daily work.

“All deeds are done, all mortgages are done. We're now back into leases and power of attorneys and things like that, so we're getting really close to having that completed.”

In response to questions from Daniels, McConnaughey said that 107 books were scanned as a part of this project, but there are still 900 additional books not scanned, dating back to the early 1800s. Daniels said they may look into scanning additional books in the future through the county’s new multimillion-dollar records storage facility being constructed on Beech Street.

“One of the things that we’ve talked about with the records center, and when we get that up and running, maybe that's a five- or six-year project, but then after everybody gets moved in and it gets established, maybe we can start doing some of this scanning on our own,” Daniels said.

McConnaughey said that would be “a great idea.”

The recorder also discussed his office staff. McConnaughey said that Emily Jackson, who was hired in 2022 and promoted to chief deputy in 2023, remains in his office, while deputy Emily Barr was hired in June 2024 to replace Jo Sanborn.

“I just want to compliment my staff,” he said. “They're awesome. I have a great chief deputy. Emily Jackson does a great job for me. She's been with us a little right at two years, and she just does a great job.

“I just hired Emily Barr this past year, and she's done a really good job learning the ropes. She's kind of still in training for another year, but she's doing really good. I really lean on them a lot, so I appreciate them.”

After reviewing his report, McConnaughey welcomed questions from commissioners. Roades asked how the recorder’s office website, which allows individuals to access records for free without coming into the office in person, was working out. McConnaughey said they have “over a thousand” registered users, including “Realtors, attorneys, bankers” and other citizens.

“It’s great,” McConnaughey said. “And it's free, so you're not having to pay for the copies. Some counties still don't allow that.”

McConnaughey added that the recorder’s website also gives citizens the opportunity to sign up for Fraud Sleuth, which will send out a notification anytime a document with their name is recorded. For more information or to sign up, go to https://co.highland.oh.us/offices/recorder.html.

“It will not stop fraud, but it is something that our vendor is using so that if something got filed in your name and you're not aware of it, and it's not something that should have been filed in your name, you can sign up,” McConnaughey said. “It would send you an email the next day saying, ‘hey, something just got recorded in your name. You need to go look at it.’

“It's not going to stop it, but at least you're going to know day one that something happened. We've had a lot of people taking advantage of that.”

Daniels asked if McConnaughey “expected to see a few more filings” this year as “interest rates drop a little bit.” McConnaughey said that “yes, I think it’s going to up” in 2025.

Daniels also reminded the community that the recorder’s office will assist with research for Ohio’s Century Farm program and thanked them for those efforts.

“We do enjoy that,” McConnaughey said. “It takes some time, so what we've started doing is [saying] ‘hey, send us your information, come in and if you want to help, you can,’ but a lot of times we have to do it when we have free time.

“I think we've recorded now up to 35 of those that we've assisted, maybe not done fully, but been a part of.”

Commissioners thanked McConnaughey for his yearly report.

In other discussion:

• Following their regular meeting Wednesday, commissioners hosted the Ohio Valley Regional Development Commission’s first-round caucus.

• Roades announced that the commission would be holding a special meeting Thursday, Feb. 6 with Blue Scope Construction and CCC to discuss planned renovations to the Administration Building.

The meeting agenda Thursday also included an executive session to “consider employment discipline.” No action was taken after the executive session, according to commission clerk Ashleigh Willey.

Commissioners also made the following approvals, each by a 3-0 vote:

• A planned services agreement among Highland County Commissioners, Highland County Sheriff and Johnson Controls Fire Protection LP for fire protection services at the Justice Center in the amount of $6,292.14.

“It’s basically for alarm system, detectors, cleaning, sensitivity testing, sprinkler system, all the things that deal with fire,” Roades said.

• The execution of a non-entitlement programmatic agreement for administration of programs using HUD allocated funds with delegated review responsibilities authorized under 24 CFR Part 58.

“This is a five-year CDBG [Community Development Block Grant] grant within the state, and it's just a renewal, which we have every five years,” Roades said.

• A request from the Ohio Division of Liquor Control for a liquor license application by developers of a new 1st Stop in Highland was forwarded back to the state without comment. Commissioners previously gave the public two weeks to submit any objections.

• A budget modification within the 1000 County General Fund in the amount of $35,028.80.

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