Full Report (PDF) - Office of the Legislative Auditor

DEPUTY REGISTRAR FINANCES 43Hennepin County, we used cost allocation studies conducted for the county byDavid M. Griffith and Associates. 3Expense data are also limited because public deputy registrars often do not allocateindirect expenses, such as building usage, finance services, and personnelservices. City and county staffwho reported building usage chaIges includedsome who actually paid rent, some who reported their estimate of market rent, andsome who reported actual operating and building usage expenses allocated to thedepu~ registrar. All but one of these chatges were between $5 and $18 per squarefoot. 4 For deputy registrnrs who did not report building cbaIges, we made lowand high estimates based on their square footage. Our low estimates were $12 persquare foot in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, $10 per square foot in huge citiesoutside the Twin Cities metropolitan area, and $8 in small non-metropolitan cities.Our high estimates ranged from $15 to $10 per square foot.Most cities and counties that reported other indirect expenses estimated that theywere between 3 and 12 percent of the deputy's personnel costs. We used 5 percentas our low estimate and 10 percent as our high estimate of indirect expenses.Non-Profit Deputy RegistrarsWhile Minnesota's non-profit deputy registrars are part oflarger organizations,they each have separate deputy registrar staff and there is only a small amount ofjob sharing between deputy registrar and other activities. Thus, personnel costs,the largest expense categOIY, should be reliable. However, as with public deputyregistrnrs, estimates of indirect expenses are less certain. We used estimates madeby each non-profit organization.Private Deputy RegistrarsFor privatedeputies, wedefined incomeas the owner'ssalary andbenefits plusnet businessincome.Some private deputy registrars, particularly small deputies, combine their deputyregistrar business with other businesses, including accounting services, insurance,real estate, banking, and retail shops. All of the large and most of the mediumlargeprivate deputies are separate businesses. Some of the private deputies withother businesses keep separate expense records for the deputy registrar. Overall,other business activity was not a significant problem for our expense data exceptfor small deputies with other businesses.For corporate deputies, corporate profits are not a meaningful indicator of the incomethe owner receives from the deputy registrar business because corporateowners typically pay themselves enough salary to bring the profits close to zero.As a result, we measured income by adding the owner's salary, health and retirementbenefits, and net corporate income (revenue minus expenses).3 Hennepin Cotmty, Hennepin County, Minnesota Service Center Cost Study, A CostlRevenueAnalysis, prepared under contract by David M Griffith and Associates, (Minneapolis, 1991). Othercounties that sponsored cost studies were Le Sueur, Nicollet, and Becker counties.4 One county reported a cost of$30 per square foot, including $9 per square foot in custodial expenses.