Full Report (PDF) - Office of the Legislative Auditor

DEPUTY REGISTRAR FINANCES 53Fee studies conducted in three counties by David Griffith & Associates indicatethat the huge fee differences between watercraft and snowmobile registrations($.50) and motor vehicle and driver's license transactions ($3.50) are not justifiedon the basis of cost. In the three counties, the estimated registration cost for watercraftand snowmobiles ranged from 25 percent lower to 30 percent higher than theaverage cost of motor vehicle and driver's license transactions.CORPORATE SALESTwentycorporatedeputies havebeen sold. Thehighest pricewas $108,000.Since 1984, the year when private deputies were allowed to incorporate, 60 of the78 private deputy registrars have incorporated and 20 have been sold. Excludingfour sales within the family, deputy registrars that have been sold range in sizefrom 5,000 to 35,000 transactions per year. None of the hl1~e deputy registrarshas been sold. We obtained sale prices from 13 of the 16 deputy registrars thathave been sold outside the family. Sale prices ranged from $20,000 to $108,000.Four sales were for $100,000 or more. On average, the sale price was about 3.6times the annual number of transactions, or slightly more than the g~ss annualrevenue, under the current fee structure. Eleven out of thirteen sales had a saleprice between 2.4 and 4.7 times the annual number of transactions.For 10 out of the 13 sales, the buyer indicated whether any property was includedin the sale. For all 10 sales, the only property included was some office fixtures oroffice equipment. Typically, the value of this property was $1,000 or less.The corporate sale prices indicate that there is strong interest in becoming a deputyregistrar, even in small cities. Five of the sales were made by deputies with annualgross revenues less than $40,000. Two had annual gross revenues under$20,000. Yet, all five sold for $20,000 or more. However, since most small deputieshave not been sold, the sale price data do not necessarily mean that all smalldeputies could attract offers of this size.SUMMARYOverall, we found that large and medium-large deputy registrars tend to do well financially,but most small public deputy registrars lost money and most small privatedeputies had relatively low incomes. In 1992, the average co~ pertransaction for public deputy registrars ranged from $4.15 for small deputies to$2.76 for large single-office deputies. Under the current fee schedule, average incomesearned by private deputies in 1992 would have ranged from $15,000 forsmall deputies to $103,000 for large deputies. Sales of corporate deputy registrarsindicate that there is strong interest in becoming a deputy registrar, even in smallcities. Excluding 4 sales within the family, 16 private deputies have been sold,with sale prices ranging from $20,000 to $108,000.