No Recording Fee Increase

This bill increases the general recording and filing fees charged by county registers of deeds, increases the amount of the fees that counties must submit to the Department of Administration for the land information program, and increases the minimum grant amount DOA may award to counties for education and training grants under the program.

The land information program is instrumental in Wisconsin and the WRA has been long time supporters of the benefits that the program gives to state residents and visitors.

In fact, the WRA has not only been an active member of the Land Information Council for decades but supported the reallocation of a $5 portion of the document recording fee to create a statewide Digital Parcel Map in the 2013-2015 state budget.

The current document recording fee is $30. AB 915 /SB 872 proposes to increase the document recording fee to $45.

The WRA does not support increasing the document recording fee and instead encourages the legislature to find alternative methods to fund the land information program.

While everyone benefits from the land information program such as emergency services, local units of government, utility companies, GPS services, schools, and tourists – the land information program is solely funded by those recording a document on real property.

One possible funding solution:
As noted above, AB 915/SB 872 does not propose an increase to the county general fund. While county may choose to use the $15 to support the land information program in ways of staffing, hardware, software, data development, and maintenance, the reality is each county has discretion on how the $15 collected from the document recording fee is allocated.

Therefore, one option to address the funding needs of the land information program would be to take the $15 paid to the general fund and reallocate it to both the land information office and the Wisconsin Land Information Program. This salutation allows the document recording fee to remain $30 while helping to support the land information program.