Issue of the Month: Kent County Clerk/Register of Deeds

The Kent County Clerk’s office, with a budget of $3.7 million, has four functions: (1) manage County elections, (2) maintain county and citizen vital records, (3) serve as Register of Deeds, and (4) process and maintain 17th Circuit Court records. There are 44 total employees assigned to these responsibilities. The office is supervised by an elected Kent County Clerk, which is a partisan office with an election every four years. The Elections Division oversees all elections conducted in Kent County including school and local elections, and monitors campaign finance law. The Vital Records Division files, stores, and retains 20,000 vital records annually such as birth, marriage, and death records and makes them available to citizens. This Division also processes licenses for concealed weapons, business registrations, and records military discharges. The Register of Deeds office records nearly 125,000 documents annually pertaining to real property including deeds, mortgages, land contracts, liens and other real estate documents. The Clerk’s functions with the 17th Circuit Court includes keeping over 350,000 court records including records of court proceedings, judgments, fines, and other court related issues. This function involves the largest number of staff in the Department. A significant accomplishment the past year was implementing ‘e-business court’ mandated by the Michigan Supreme Court to streamline court procedures.