County works to improve processes

Sanders County is adding efficiencies to help customers and the state. The county treasurer’s office is one of the first counties in the state to get new scanning technology for vehicle titles.

County Treasurer Nichol Scribner said the scanning capabilities will significantly cut the time down that residents have to wait to receive a vehicle title. The title documentation is now scanned daily at the treasurer’s office and uploaded to the state Motor Vehicle Division (MVD). The state agency then reviews the information and issues the new title within a matter of days.

Scribner said that the average wait for a title used to be 4-6 weeks. The title documents would be collected at the county, reviewed and mailed weekly to MVD. The extra time for mailing, as well as the extra time for MVD to scan the documents into the system themselves, added wait time for customers. If an issue was found with any title documents, MVD would hold onto the documents and have to contact the county for a resolution. With the daily scanning, issues can be discovered and resolved quicker. Scribner said that titles now can be received by customers in a matter of days.

“To have a title within a week is huge. It’s more efficient for customers,” Scribner said.

The new technology also saves the county money. They no longer have to pay the postage to send the stacks of title documents to Helena.

Scribner said that the new technology is being implemented throughout the state, but that Sanders County is one of the first to get the scanner. She said that she first learned about the new service at a training in Helena. MVD is implementing the scanners in all counties.

Scribner also stated this week that processes have been changed to ensure that county accounts for special districts, schools, cities and other organizations are up to date. In January, The Ledger reported that financial reports were delayed to organizations in the transition to a new county treasurer. Scribner and her staff in January were still working to reconcile November and December accounts. Scribner had attended the January Thompson Falls School Board meeting, and Superintendent Bill Cain met with Sanders County Commissioners to address concerns about the delay. Scribner reported that the reconciliation process has been automated and the manual data entry step removed to provide more accuracy and speed up the process. She said that February reconciliation will be on time to organizations with accounts in the county, and that all tax money to those districts has been distributed.