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DUTIES

Duties as Ex-Officio Auditor

As chief accounting officer of the county, the auditor is responsible for recording the appropriations made to county agencies, the outstanding liabilities against the appropriations, and the expenditure made against the appropriations. The auditor also keeps accounting records on the revenues, expenditures, and balances in each county fund to make sure that county agencies have not overspent their budgets. The auditor also pays the bills after the commissioners approve them.

The county auditor prepares and abstract of real and personal property entered on the county assessment rolls and transmits this to the state tax commission. The auditor extends and computes taxes due on the assessment rolls and calculates the percent of market value equivalent of tax levies.

In January of each year the auditor certifies the total value of all taxable property located in cities, school districts, and special taxing districts in their determination of tax rates to be levied for the current year. Then in August, the auditor must notify the clerk of each taxing unit the county of the (a) valuation from the real and first personal property roll for the current year, and (b) subsequent an d operation (utility) property rolls from the previous year. The county auditor, acting as clerk of the board of county commissioners, figures the tax of the levies for teach taxing district in the county, making sure the levies conform to Idaho Code 63-2224. The clerk-auditor then presents the tax levies to the commissioners and then the state tax commission for approval. When both commissions have approved the levies the county can then prepare its tax notices.

The county auditor sells a variety of licenses according to state code and collects fees for certain services (Idaho Code 31-3205).

Duties as Ex-Officio Clerk of the Board of Commissioners

The county clerk of the district court is designated by law as ex-officio clerk of the board of county commissioners (Idaho Code 31-708).

Some of those duties include: recording proceedings of the board of commissioners, preparing minutes and publishing in the official newspaper: recording resolutions and other decisions regarding financial county arrangements; recording votes on questions before the commissioners; signing orders and warrants; recording receipts and disbursements of money; preserving and filing accounts, petitions and franchises; records tax levies and performs other duties required by law or by any rule or order of the board

Clerk as County Budget Officer/Indigent Investigator

The Clerk of the board of Commissioners also acts as county budget officer (Idaho Code 31-1602). In this role the clerk compiles budget requests and submits a budget to the board of commissioners. In addition, the clerk is required to take applications for any medically indigent, sick or otherwise indigent person desiring aid from the county (Idaho Code 31-2401) and to immediately investigate or cause to be investigated the grounds of such application (Idaho Code 31-3405)

Duties as Ex-Officio Recorder

The recorder is responsible for recording, filing and indexing a large number of documents. The number of recordings exceeded 22,000 in 1995. Many of these were multiple page documents making the number of pages recorded, digital scanned and back-up micro-filmed close to 50,000, an average of 200 pages per day. The recorder collects fees for recording and providing copies of legal documents that go into the county treasury. Fiscal year 1994-95 the fees collected amount to $144,248. The balance needed to operate the officer $51,551 came from property taxes. County recorders last legislative session proposed an increase in recording fees to the state legislature, to no avail, in hopes of becoming more user fee supported The recorder has custody of, and must keep all books, records, maps and papers deposited in his/her office (Idaho Code 31-2401). The recording of land transfers is a very important part of the recorder's duties. these recorded documents are made available by code to interested parties including those conducting title search. The count recorder's office is the only office in Idaho authorized to issue marriage licenses (Idaho Code 32-401; 202;412a;205,206,207,403,402,408). In addition to deeds and marriage licenses, the county recorder is a responsible for recording and indexing many legal documents upon payment of the necessary fee (Idaho Code 31-3205)