How do you benefit from government? What's in it for you?

I can't answer that for every level or every office of government, but I can explain how you benefit from the Commissioner of State Lands Office, both collectively and individually.

If you attend public school, visit the library, are sent to most hospitals or drive on public roads, you benefit from this office. We collect delinquent real estate taxes and return that money to the county, where it's used to provide essential public services.

But many people benefit more directly. For years, people interested in small-scale real estate investment have found our auctions a great starting place. And over the past year, buyers have purchased millions of dollars' worth of property in our secondary online auction.

Parcels that do not sell at our live auctions in each county go onto the unsold property list. In July 2021, we began offering those parcels in an online auction. This replaced the old mail-in bidding system – and users loved it. In the past year, we've sold over 8,000 parcels for almost $3 million through the online auction. That's over 25 percent more parcels than we sold the last year of the mail-in system.

Since I took office in January 2019, my staff has worked to streamline services. We're constantly looking for ways to make this office more efficient and user-friendly.

Our newest project is electronic recording. Almost two-thirds of Arkansas' counties allow the electronic management of real estate and other legal records. This year, we're joining them by electronically filing the deeds the COSL office issues.

Last year, we generated almost 40,000 deeds. This includes redemption deeds, issued when a property owner pays delinquent real estate taxes, and limited warranty deeds after we sell a parcel at auction or post-auction.

In the counties that offer e-recording, we will upload those deeds electronically. It saves ink, paper and postage – in other words, money and physical resources. And it saves time. Deeds will be recorded immediately, rather than traveling through the mail for several days. An employee won't be printing, stuffing envelopes and processing mail on our end. Nor will an employee be opening envelopes and manually processing the deed in the circuit clerk's office. This equates to hours saved on both ends.

What about those counties that still record on paper? We will continue to send paper deeds to them; after all, we work to provide the best service for each individual county. And as more counties move to electronic recording, we will move with them.

My office worked closely with the Arkansas Electronic Recording Commission to establish the new project, and to learn how we can best meet county needs for recording deeds. The county recording officers and industry experts on that commission have dedicated years to making e-recording a reality in Arkansas. I appreciate their dedication and hard work, and I'm grateful for their willingness to walk every step of this path with us.

And I'm committed to this office's increased efficiency and usability. We work every day to make this office the best part of state government. We take it seriously that we work for you.

We'll be announcing more changes soon, so I encourage you to watch your local news sources and connect with us on social media to stay updated on this office. We're on Facebook (Arkansas Commissioner of State Lands); Twitter (@ARCOSLoffice) and Instagram (AR Commissioner of State Lands).

Print Headline: How do you benefit from government? What’s in it for you

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