Public Trustee's efficiency adds up for El Paso County

Tom Mowle, the El Paso County Public Trustee, has become a money-making machine for the county.

By working more efficiently, the trustee’s office has squirreled away more than $500,000  that will be transferred to the county’s general fund. That figure could top $800,000 by year’s end, Mowle said.

The $500,000, Mowle stated, represents “more net funds than the office had sent in any of the previous five years.” The public trustee’s office is almost 100 percent supported by fees charged to banks for costs related to foreclosures.

Mowle, a Democrat who was appointed public trustee by Gov. Bill Ritter in February of 2008, is campaigning to become the county’s next clerk and recorder.

In the November election, he will face off against Republican Wayne Williams, who is finishing his second, four-year term as county commissioner.

Mowle credited the savings to several cost-cutting measures, including the elimination of three and a half jobs and the out-sourcing of some tasks, such as printing.

What makes the savings even more remarkable, Mowle said in an interview Monday, is that the public trustee’s office showed significant savings despite the elimination of a $57 fee that Mowle said was being improperly charged.

The fee was implemented in 2002 and was tacked onto bills sent to banks to offset costs for mailing, printing, telephone, copying costs and other expenses, he said. “The problem was, the fee was not linked to the actual cost for a particular file,” Mowle said. “It artificially increased the revenue received by El Paso County.”

The $57 fee accounted for about $114,000 in revenue received by the public trustee’s office in 2005; $129,000 in 2006, $178,000 in 2007 and $230,000 in 2008.

Mowle eliminated the fee completely in 2009. “Given the way the work was being done, about $50 of the $57 was unauthorized,” he said.

“We were charging banks for work that was supposed to come out of our cost of doing business.”

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Call the writer at 476-4825.