Steinmann Speaks at North Shore Republican Women's Meeting

MONTGOMERY, TX -- The North Shore Republican Women are great in inviting informative speakers to their monthly meetings at the Bentwater Country Club, that share vital information of which citizens should be made aware. Last month it was Judges’ Vince Santini (457th District Court) and Kristin Bays (284th District Court) who spoke on the need for new infrastructure amongst Montgomery County courts, tax office, courthouse renovations, and for safe and secure prisoner and money transfers. This month it was Montgomery County Clerk Brandon Steinmann, who gave a very informative talk in reference to his office’s support to the County Courts at Law and other divisions, noting his responsibilities, and the breathing of new life into the office in regards to innovation and improved user experiences. The County Clerk’s office was formed during the Republic of Texas in 1838, even before the Commissioners Court, and the office rolled over into the State of Texas.

The overhead cost of running the County Clerk’s office is surprisingly low at approximately $133,000 dollars yearly for non-payroll activities, with the rest going to salaries and benefits; but the intake fees, now averaging near $8 million per year, making it the only self-funding office in the county. Besides Civil, Criminal, and Probate Court activities, Steinmann also oversees the Public Records and Recording division, which handles Assumed Named Certificates for businesses, Livestock branding, Foreclosures, Liquor Licenses, Military, and Property Records; while his Vital Statistics division keeps track of marriages, births, and deaths. The County Clerks’ Office in Montgomery County is 187 years old, being a year older than the Commissioners Court in the county, and Steinmann’s office also handles the records for the County Judge and Commissioners, ensuring that the court runs smoothly.

Steinmann’s office has 50 employees, with two being part-time, and with his innovations and technological adjustments has been able to slightly reduce the number of employees to his office slightly, thus reducing costs to the taxpayers of Montgomery County. He expressed the importance of customer service to the citizens his office serves, and the restyling of procedures to make visits as short and painless as possible.

“A lot of times we have people coming in to pay their fees, trying to move on from a bad time in their life,” said Steinmann. “We have people coming in excited about their upcoming marriages, and you don’t want to be spending time with my staff; so we have worked to make sure to get you in and out as quickly as possible.”

Brandon stressed the expectations for his staff to remain positive in their customer interactions, which need to essentially change on a dime, from the happiness of citizens applying for marriage licenses, to the melancholy of family members requesting death certificates in the next customer. Steinman noted the need for periodic staff training to adjust to the needs of each customer interaction. For vital statistics of birth, death, and marriage certificates, the services are available at the Main Office in Conroe, but also at the East County Annex in New Caney, and the South County Annex in The Woodlands.

The County Clerk Courts division handles case management and filings, as well as jury candidates for the courts, and the collections of fees and fines. And in his initial assessments of his collections department he immediately made changes.

“When I came in I realized that we had a collections department made up of seven employees, and it was principally designed to make things easier for the criminals, and it was costing the taxpayers money,” said Steinmann. “So after analyzing the situation, we realized that we could cut that department, saving a half-million dollars in spending annually.”

Steinmann’s working model coming into office was to find a way to modernize the office, insteading of asking for more people or tax dollars, and it’s proven itself with the county clerk's office being able to pay for its working activities. The Recording division handles new businesses, plats, deeds, military records, etc., and it’s where the documents are filed to protect business and personal interests in the community. Records preservation is very important to protect county documents dated from 1838 to 1961, and the County Clerk’s office has spent approximately $1.5 million dollars working to safeguard the most important documents, and to modernize the office by digitizing officials records for the quick pull-up and certification of documents for public use.

“We keep these records not only for history lessons, but as part of our community, and it helps for those who come in and research for grants, or to find out more about their property or family name,” said Steinmann.

Keeping track of all the files is very important, and indexing of scanned documents is important to keep a safe digital version of each document that the country clerk’s office maintains. Steinmann gave the example of anyone wanting to research the history of FM 1097, that they can request the file and determine funding, contracts, and any aspect of how the project proceeded till its completion. It’s a public file, and it is there in the interest of transparency.

Brandon noted Conroe’s growth in Texas as well as The Nation, and with the increased number of citizens, it creates an increased demand on services from his office.

“Just two years our office had over 160,000 transactions,” said Steinmann. “Now we expect to have over 220,000 transactions before the end of 2025, a nearly 40% increase.”

Steinmann went on to say that the increased numbers are directly attributable to new arrivals, and his office will have to find new and innovative ways to stand ahead of the influx of demand upon the county clerk’s office.

The Public Records office oversees the officials filings not only for Montgomery County, but for documents that need to be sent to the State of Texas, or the Federal Government, but the records are there, mostly in a searchable database for records after 1961, and can be pulled up almost instantaneously for easy distribution to customers. In addition, meeting notices are filed for all taxpayer funded organizations in the County. The Vital Statistics division personnel are highly vetted with background checks, and must comply with state-statutes in order to qualify to protect county citizens information. Steinmann was instrumental in changing the marriage licenses, from a picture of the 1936 courthouse on the document, to one being framed with bluebonnets, which is very popular, and couples are given the choice of either one. Of course, the bride's choice is the bluebonnets, and the staff joke amongst themselves if there is division amongst the couples in the choice of marriage license templates. The oldest marriage license in the county is dated December 1841, and will be on view at the grand opening of The County Records Repository near the Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport in December.

Steinmann spoke on the protection of documents, and of the ones that are not required to be kept by law, the ones from 1962 onwards, approximately 85% of those documents have already been scanned, which reduces the amount of space for storage. The County Clerk noted that user fees pay for the scanning and retention of the documents, and for the documents from 1961 and prior, Brandon displayed a binder that are not only showed documents written on parchment, on paper from a hundred and fifty years ago, by are written on cloth napkins, sheep skin, and paper with fading ink over time. Some documents even have clear tape. The county has document preservers on staff that it’s their job to make sure the documents withstand the test of time. There are also personal document collections that are gifted to the clerk’s office by notable citizens of the county’s past, and in working with the Montgomery County Historical Commission, many of those documents are scanned and searchable online.

Off-site storage of the digital documents are located at the Western Pennsylvania Data Center in Iron Mountain, Pennsylvania, which is a trusted global data center for the safe storage of digitized documents should a disaster present itself. The County Clerk is also Vice Chair of the County Elections Commission, which met recently after ten years, to coordinate the changes in reference to the new hand counting requirements that verify election results. He also serves on the County Bail Bonds Commission.

“We had a hearing concerning Montgomery County elections, and the people left the meeting feeling confident in the transparency, and in the conduct of our elections,” said Steinmann. “We are always available to citizens who have any questions to assure them that we are above board when it comes to choosing candidates for political office.”

Steinmann and his deputy have cut the time warrants are removed from the system, and notifications are made to outside agencies by the use of email and other tech. Birth Certificates are now available online, as well as a new ‘Property Fraud Alert Service,’ which is a free service to alert you for scams to steal your home equity. Steinmann has also instituted a ‘Thank a Veteran’ Program which matches Veterans with DD-214’s on file at the County Clerk’s office, making them eligible to receive discounts from Montgomery County businesses who participate with the County Clerk’s office. Veterans will be issued an ID-Card, that matches to Thank a Veteran decals that will be on display at businesses. Discounts generally range from 10% - 20%.

Montgomery County Clerk: mctx.org/countyclerk

Property Fraud Alert: PropertyFraudAlert.org

Thank A Veteran: mctx.org/index_clerk/public_records/thank_a_veteran.php

Newsletter: mctx.org/search.php?q=newsletter