I Am Zacchaeus... The Wee Little Man

I am Zacchaeus, the wee little man. This is the Elevate Polk Podcast, and I'm your host Chrissanne Long. And with me as always is Rob Arturi. Before we actually introduce our guest, I'm going to let Joe tell us why we named the episode I Am Zacchaeus.

Well, Chrissanne, thank you so much for inviting me. Uh, this is a pleasure to be with you guys. My first podcast, so looking forward to seeing how this turns out. So as the tax collector, I always like to associate myself with Zacchaeus because in the Bible it tells a story about how when Jesus was coming into Jericho, there was the tax collector in the Bible named Zacchaeus. And Zacchaeus wanted to kind of get a glimpse at Jesus and who is this guy and try to get a little feel for what he's all about. And so he was a short guy, a wee little man, and so he had to climb a sycamore tree to be able to see over the crowds to see Jesus. So when I ran for tax collector and being a guy that's, you know, close to 5'5", I always said, you know, I'm like Zacchaeus, a wee little man. Now, as I've told people, I probably couldn't climb the sycamore tree as well as Zacchaeus did, especially not these days. But I am short, so I always like to associate myself with Zacchaeus.

And I think we're trying to figure out what Zacchaeus was actually truly trying to do.

Yeah, so Bible scholars out there, my assertion is that maybe Zacchaeus was trying to climb the tree, not just to see Jesus, but to see how many people were there to appropriately assess taxes. I don't know what they taxed back in those days, if you had a big event or something, but—

I think they taxed whatever they wanted to tax.

Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.

People who were wearing sandals and people who weren't. The ones wearing sandals got taxed.

Yes.

Yeah. So we have you as our guest, Joe Tedder, our tax collector in Polk County since 1996. And so I was curious to know what the record is as to the longest elected official to stay in office. And you have a story to tell us about someone who has a tenure longer than yours.

Oh, much longer. In fact, I'm not even the longest serving tax collector in Polk County. That's a gentleman by the name of Hobson Strain, who was a tax collector just before me. But I'm getting close to Hobson's number. But but not there yet. But the tax collector in Orange County, a gentleman by the name of Earl K. Wood, served from the early '60s up until about 2012, 2014, something like that.

Wow. How many years is that?

I have no idea. A bunch. I'm not good with numbers. 60-something years.

You're not good with numbers?

Wait a minute.

Earl Kay was an interesting guy. When I got elected in '96, he was there as the tax collector, but his health quickly started to decline. And really in his last years as tax collector, he was in very poor health. In fact, he was 96 and had just turned 97 and was not running. He was finally not running for tax collector after all those years. And generations had grown up knowing Earl Kay Way as their tax collector. And so he was not going to run. Assistant was going to run for the office. She had already raised money, was ready to, to qualify. And during qualifying week, Earl K panicked and heard that somebody was going to come in and qualify at the last minute that he didn't like. And so he went to his assistant and said, uh, Kelly, I've decided I'm gonna run again at 97. And so she didn't know what to do, so she went ahead and backed out. Gracefully backed out. She didn't want to run against her boss. And Earl K qualified, and the guy that he had heard a rumor was going to qualify never did. So Earl K was on the ballot against somebody else that nobody had ever heard of. And the ballots got printed, and about a month before the election, Earl K just died in his sleep. He never woke up. And the way the law works is the party decides who will be the tax collector if somebody has passed away. And so they picked the gentleman by the name of Scott Randolph, who is currently the tax collector in Orange County. And Earl K, at the age of 97, who was a little bit senile and actually passed away, won with about 65% of the vote.

Oh my goodness.

In Orange County. And that's how Scott Randolph became the tax collector in Orange County.

Wow. What does it say about Orange County voters?

Well, you know, When you're on the ballot for as many years as Earl K, I mean, people just—

The power of incumbency.

They knew Earl K.

Well, let me mention that because that's one area that I wanted to talk about specifically because in other settings I've been an advocate for term limits for certain reasons. But I have found that typically when somebody is in a position for a really long time, and when I was Leading up to this podcast, I was looking at your bio just to get an idea, and I was surprised that you've been the tax collector for as long as you have because it's been my experience when people have the luxury of that incumbency, when they can stay on the ballot and they just keep getting reelected and reelected, there becomes this bureaucratic cement that just keeps them in office. And that's not usually a good thing, and the evidence is that they can be there for 25, 35 years and it seems like nothing ever changes. It's been my experience since moving here in 2002 and 10 years ago, starting, starting a business that the process, at least with respect to the tax collector's process, whether it's vehicles or business taxes, it's remarkably current and modern. And I work with a lot of businesses in another business that I have around the country. And specifically like California, which is atrocious.

Yeah.

And then I compare it to what we have right here in Polk County with a veteran, longstanding tax collector. And we're on the cutting edge of so much in terms of customer service and the ease of doing things, the efficiency. It's really remarkable. And I think it is really something to be in office for that long and to still keep pushing and pushing for, for to do things better. I just want to start off just by telling you that because to me, that was one of the most important things that stood out to me when I looked back at your tenure as tax collector, because I don't think it's the norm for longstanding politicians in one position to do that. So I think we're lucky to have you.

Well, thank you. Well, that kind of— it's an interesting subject. I served in the Florida legislature before I came tax collector. It was right when the Florida legislature had passed term limits. So the interesting perspective I had is I served with people that had been in for a long time, and I had served with people that had just got elected. I'm not a fan of term limits, and I know that's not a popular thing to say, but I'm not. At the legislative branch, as well as in offices, local government, or in the case of tax collector, constitutional officers, What I have found is term limits truly do empower staff, and it truly does empower lobbyists because they become the experts of the subject matter. When I was in the legislature serving alongside somebody on the Insurance Committee that had served on the Insurance Committee for 14 years. They knew that issue. They knew things that had been tried in the past that had failed. They had the ability to articulate, "This is why we did this." That institutional knowledge was critical, I felt like. And I think another downside of term limits is people get elected and it just happens. It's human nature, both in the House and the Senate. One of the first things most of them start thinking about is, "How do I elevate myself in the leadership of either the House or the Senate? How do I become—" Some of them come in even before they get elected and are already thinking about they want to be Speaker of the House, and they haven't even got elected yet. But as soon as they get elected, they start trying to figure out how to become Speaker, and they start asking people to commit to them, give them their pledge to vote for them to be Speaker, 8 or 12 years down the road or 6 years down the road. So that'd be like me going, Chrissanne, hey, I know we just met, but I want to be speaker in 6 years. Will you vote for me to be speaker? And Chrissanne goes, well, yeah, I guess. And then 2 years later, they're like—

I need you to do this for me first.

Yeah. And then 2 years later they're like, I don't agree with what Joe stands for. I don't feel comfortable. I do not want him to be my leader. It just completely changes the whole dynamic. Now, when I got in, the people that were the speaker, uh, had been in the House for a long time. You knew the character of that person. You knew where that person stood on policies. You had a good idea when you pledged to that person. You knew what you were pledging to and who you were pledging to support as speaker. The whole thing is completely backwards, I think, now. Now, I know the general public loves the idea of saying, "You know what? As soon as I let Chrissanne get into office, I'm already trying to figure out when Chrissanne's got to get out of there." They like term limits. They like the idea of forcing somebody out of the process when I think ultimately it harms it. And I'm in the minority with that. Now, when it comes to constitutional offices, tax collector, property appraiser, supervisor of elections, clerk of the court, sheriff, their very unique different offices. That's true. That is true. I agree. We walk in one way in policy, public policy, but we walk another way in administration. And so it takes a blending of those two, and you do not want to push somebody out of one of those offices when their expertise, the things I know about being tax collector now, different than the things I knew my first 8 years is dramatic. Right. I'm learning and growing every day, just like anybody else is in life. So I'm a better tax collector today than I was before. And I appreciate your compliments in regards to us still being on the cutting edge, which we believe we are, in everything that we do. But that comes out of a person's something inside them. For me, I call it, I'm paranoid. I'm always, every customer, you know, I can pull on my phone and tell you who's, how many people are waiting in each one of our branches, how long they've been waiting, which one of my employees is providing customer service to that person, how long they've been doing it, how long they've been with that person. Wow. I can tell you, I'm every single customer, I'm paranoid that I've got to please them. I've got to do a good job with that customer. and I got to create systems that allows my staff to be successful in doing that because every one of those individuals are a voter. And if I do not take care of each one of those individuals, eventually when it comes their time to vote me in or out, I'm going to be out.

That's a great point. That's a great counterpoint to the argument. I think term limits for me, I don't really think about them in terms of legislature, definitely not the constitutional officers. That point is spot on. We have to— there's some nuance here. I think the higher you go, the more important those term limits are because sometimes the power gets kind of top-heavy. But no, I agree with you. I think there is a cost. There's an opportunity cost to term limits because where people do have the potential for bad because they're in a position entrenched for a long period of time and then bureaucracy, which is usually negative, there is a positive side, which is what you just described, which is people in that position for a long time, they know what they're doing, they know what doesn't work, and they're not having to learn the job over and over again as new people come in. And I think it's harder to make change. I think the fallacy is people think, "Well, if we just had a new tax collector every 4 years, look at how much advancement we'd have, how much new input and fresh ideas." That's not necessarily true.

Well, and I think it has to go to— we have to speak to the quality of the leadership as well. So if a tax collector who is not as concerned and hypervigilant of the customer service that he is providing to the voters is just kind of, you know, resting on his laurels, well, then we need to find a new leader. Right. But in this case, Joe is always trying to up his game, trying to find a new and better way. And as long as he has the energy and the desire to improve, then we are beneficiaries of the fact that he's a tenured, knowledgeable tax collector and the systems that he's created can continue to be improved upon other than recreating or reinventing a new wheel with somebody else.

Yeah, you can't become complacent. And that's the one thing that I, I have tried and tried hard in my management style and what we're trying to accomplish to never become complacent, never take anything Never take anything for granted. Our vision in our organization is to change people's perception of government. And when I first got in the legislature, my opinion of government and people that worked in government was probably the traditional opinion people have, that government could not be successful in hardly anything that they do. And the people that worked in government worked in government because they couldn't find anything else to do. And I learned early, early, early, early on that that is so wrong. That I had the opportunity to work with in the legislature, first off, some of the most highly academic credentialed people I'd ever been around. Secondly, some of the hardest working people ever been around. And third, truly committed to trying to do, I mean, they took their job very seriously. And I'd worked with people from all sorts of industries. I was an accountant before I got in the legislature. There were people in the private sector that these government people would outperform. So when I became tax collector, and I tell people this, I could be tax collector, I could be the clerk, I could be a county manager or city manager, my vision is the same. I believe in smaller government, but I believe in government, and I believe government is critical, but I also believe the citizens should expect the same out of government that they would any private sector industry. I want to, the way we go about taking care of people and running the office of tax collector, that I actually start to change people's perception of government. That's my passion.

Well, you work— changed mine.

Well, and so I have a personal story that I kind of want to share to, to get to the, the why that I wanted to have Joe on the show. Um, so I was in Leadership Lakeland Class 30, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time. We all know that Class 30 is the best class ever. Um, but Joe was the co-chair of, of our class. So I got to know him through that. And then through that relationship, you know, it's my biggest challenge in the leadership role that I have found myself in is that I want to challenge the status quo in the sense that you shouldn't have to know somebody to get something done, right? You should be just a general citizen who has a question or has a need, can reach out and ask a question and get an answer and not have to, you know, go around to be acknowledged. And I hear stories all the time of people, I sent an email, it never got replied to. I made a phone call, nobody called me back. But in this case, you know, we have Joe, who is a constitutional officer who is so vigilant about making sure every customer gets heard and taken care of. So I think had I not been who I am as a person who he had connected to, I still would've had the same experience. But you know that I have Bridge Local, which used to be Lakeland Business Leaders. And several years ago I decided I had a long-term renter at my house that went bad. I couldn't get him out after the end of the lease. He stopped paying. I was really running into some challenges when he finally got out of there, you know, the house was kind of a mess and I'm thinking, I don't wanna do this again. You know, you gotta paint the walls, you gotta do a whole lot of upkeep after you have a long-term renter in a house that's, you know, it's not a high-end community, you know, home. So Airbnb was making a, a presence in the community and I said, let me put my house on Airbnb. So I got some pictures taken and I created my listing and I did all the things and I posted it into the Lakeland Business Leaders group. And I said, hey, if you've ever traveled, you know, with Airbnb and booked a house, you know, take a look at my listing and tell me what you think. So I post this and people are like, oh yeah, do this, do this, do this. And then in comes the tax collector who says, make sure you're paying your taxes on the short-term rental for the home.

From his perch on the sycamore tree.

And I literally smiled because it gave me this sense of my friend is looking out for me. It wasn't the tax man is coming in to make sure he's going to get his right. And so And that started a series of conversations in which I went through the process, and it was kind of sticky, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. But the process of most of the time before Airbnb and this disruptive marketplace that is now the sharing economy came along, most of the people using the website to claim to file the taxes and to pay the taxes were property managers. This was their job. This was what they did every month. They had to do these things. Here was just this random citizen who now has to go through this process and has never done it before. So I reached back out to Joe a couple of weeks later and I said, I just, I want to talk to you about this process. It's kind of wonky and I'm not a dumb-dumb when it comes to technology. And so I don't know, maybe a month after that, we were sitting down having lunch and I was talking to him and a couple of his staff members about the process. And that's how committed he was to just at least understanding where my challenges were. Not that I was really being able to, you know, shed any huge light on it. And then shortly thereafter, Airbnb And he's going to tell this from his version. I'm telling this from like, you know, he rubbed some sticks together and fire because pretty soon I didn't have to go through that process anymore because Airbnb and Polk County came to an agreement on how those taxes were going to be filed. So now I'm going to let you tell your version of the story, because I think what it did for me was it showed me personally how efficiently you operate our tax collection agency.

Well, thank you. Well, first off, you're right. I personally am very committed to be accessible to everybody, to be able to interact with people. And nowadays with technology, there's just a variety of platforms where you can interact with people. I get LinkedIn messages, "Joe, I'm trying to renew my driver's license. What do I need?" And I try to respond to that. Facebook posts, instant messages on Facebook, texts, Email, phone calls, my business cards, all my business cards have my cell number on the back of it, my home number on the back of it. I consider myself, that's my job to be accessible. Absolutely. And so that's important. And in regards to the other thing you mentioned is, and you shouldn't feel in any way bad, I know you don't, the fact that most citizens have so many things in their life that complicates life. I mean, we were talking about my dog and the past 24 hours with my dog and the vet. And you don't have time to deal sometimes with the bureaucracy of government. And I know our family has a rental, not in Polk County, and I was responsible for filing the tourist development returns and the sales tax returns with the Department of Revenue. And talk about you understanding that. This is what I do. And it was a, it was a pain for me. And I couldn't figure out, you know, what do I do? And I'd call DOR. They said, oh, you haven't rented for 6 months. Don't worry about filling out a return. And then I get a notice from the Department of Revenue saying, why didn't you fill out a return? And, and so I understand the hassle just to get through life, much less these other things. So when I first became tax collector, the tourist development tax area is one of the most fascinating areas that I work in. Now, tourist development tax is what a lot of people call the bed tax. It's when you go to a hotel in Atlanta and they tell you it's $200 a night, and then you go to check out, they're charging you $250, and you're like, what is this other $50? Well, it's sales tax, it's tourist tax, it's bed tax, all these different things. So we collect that. We collect that for the board. That money goes to sports and marketing, and they use that to try to bring more people into Polk County. So when I first became tax collector, the industry was primarily individuals, hotels, mostly hotels and individuals that owned a home and maybe rented it out for someone that's staying over at Disney or someone that is going to Sun 'n Fun for a week or two, or someone that's coming in for spring training. So it was individuals. And so our job was to try to figure out— it was easy to find the hotels, but try to figure out the Chrissannes of the world. Hey, are you renting your house? Oh no, I'm not renting my house. Are you sure you're not renting your house? Because there's a sign on your back porch that says pool rules, make sure you take the guard— all these different things to imply there's people staying there. Right. So very hard to find, but we would try to find those. Then the industry shifted. Where there would be management companies that would maybe manage 300, 400, 500 homes, especially in our northeast part of our, of our county, the Four Corners where Osceola, Orange, and Lake and Polk County come together because there's that drive of people wanting to go to Disney World. Then it became these management companies were people that were actually from Europe. That would come over here, open to management, because they would manage properties from people in Europe that had purchased, and they were leasing them to people in Europe. Okay. So it was like this whole cottage industry. Wow. And when it came to that group, we said, okay, we got to be proactive with these folks. And so we had a tourist development council or something. It was basically an educational program. And we would invite all these management companies in and say, have classes with them, bring in different speakers, tell them how to interact with us, to try to keep them engaged with us so we would make sure we could catch all of them. Then it shifted.

I like that you said catch them all. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I almost used that. Make sure we improved our voluntary compliance. There we go. That was the term we used back then. There it is. Then there became an internet platform. Now I'm talking about Airbnb. I'm talking about I'm talking about as opposed to somebody calling these management companies and saying, I want to rent this room, or they would use other tools through the internet, which changed the whole dynamic again. So then we got into the more modern times, which now is Airbnb, HomeAway, VRBO, Vrbo, yeah, all those different things. And they actually are making it really easy for the homeowner because the homeowner just puts their property with them and they would rent it for them and coordinate everything. Then Airbnb realized that the next step for them is not just to rent the units, but to actually start collecting the tax and remitting the tax to the tax authorities. Because remember, I started my story with what a hassle it was even for me to figure that out. Right. And for you to figure that out. Airbnb says, don't worry about it, I'll do it all. We'll collect all the money. We'll pay the tax collector his portion. We'll send you your portion and everybody's happy. So Airbnb started doing that. And the challenge we had was we were still expecting Chrissanne Long to give us our money because we didn't have a relationship with Airbnb. Right. And the reason we did not have a relationship with Airbnb is there was certain information Airbnb refused to share with us. And we— it became concerning to us because Airbnb wouldn't tell me, I've just leased out Chrissanne's home, and I've just leased out Bob's home, and I've just leased out Fred's home. And it's my job to make sure Chrissanne and Fred and Bob are paying the taxes. Airbnb says, "We're just going to write you a check, and we're not going to tell you—" For the accumulative tax for all 3 or however many renters. So we went around and around with them, and the reality was there was so much money getting left on the table. We eventually worked out an agreement with Airbnb and then HomeAway that we will accept the method in which they're transmitting the revenue to us. There is a method in which we can audit. It's not as clean as we'd like to, but that we can hold them accountable by matching up different property ID numbers. We wish that was more fluid than it is. Yeah, more transparent. But yet there's other counties around the state, other tax collectors that are still tied up in litigation with Airbnb and HomeAway and those folks. Refusing to let them send them the money. They have not been successful in any of the litigation so far, but we chose to just go ahead and enter into an agreement with them because, one, we knew it was a platform the taxpayer would like, and two, it was a tremendous— I mean, we're getting $300,000, $350,000 a month in revenue through Airbnb and HomeAway. Wow. Now, there's some other companies out there, you know, there's There's a whole litany of different companies. This special arrangement we have with HomeAway and Airbnb is because the massive amount of rents that they generate. Correct. There's a variety of different offshoots. Like there's a Mr. B&B. Mr. B&B, okay. They called us and said, hey, will you work out the same agreement with us that you have with Airbnb? And Mr. B&B is is an entity that leases properties for alternative lifestyle. Okay. And so, and we're like, okay, well, tell us how much money are y'all bringing in a month for Polk County? And it was like, you know, $200 a month. And I'm like, look, I'm not going to change our accountability methods, our auditing track, our methods to try to hold everybody accountable. For that small of an account. Right. Now, if you came in and you said you were $50,000 of tax revenue coming into Polk County, then I might bend a little bit on how they report to it. So, uh, every day we're working on that and managing it, but it is, um, it's, it's a challenge. And tourist development tax is just like sales tax, and if you collect it and don't pay it, we've had people arrested, um, for doing that and put in jail for doing that, working with the state attorney's office. Uh, we have subpoena powers the tax collector's office related to this tax. Wow. We have a number of different tools, which makes this particular area very fascinating.

Well, and I just want for the audience to know when, and maybe we go back and you can kind of maybe get a little bit more specific. I'm just looking at an article that was January 28th, 2019, that says that Polk County, Airbnb paid $1.1 million in tourism taxes to Polk County during 2018. So how does that compare to before the disruption of the market? Were we bringing in that much in the tourism tax already, or have we gone up because of this new market?

You mean like from that segment, not the hotels, but like that segment?

Right. So we were already bringing in the hotel tourism tax. So we were bringing in, you know, those that he discussed already. Right. Was this a significant uptick or was it—

So the self-reporting Chrissannes of the world versus working directly with the intermediaries to help you with that collection process. Right.

So to give you an idea, in 2016 we'd collected $10.6 million. From '16 to '17, we saw a 14% increase, but '17 was a hurricane year. And so a big chunk of that increase was related to the influx of people coming to Polk County during those hurricane months. Okay. But then the next year it went up 10%, and then this past year it went up 6.8%. Previous to that, it had been going up as well. So there has been a trend of upward collections for the past several years. Okay. I wouldn't say that Airbnb is bringing in a lot more money. It's just making sure we get the money. Okay. For example, Chrissanne, if you hadn't used Airbnb, you would be paying me your tourist development tax. Just now I'm getting Chrissanne's development tax through Airbnb. Correct. As opposed to her paying it to me. Right. So it hasn't necessarily created more rental units. Okay. It's the same number of rental units.

It's just an assurance that the tax is being collected as opposed to—

Correct. It's just another, it's another pipe.

The busy month. For the money to get to me. The busy month Chrissanne has where she forgot to go to the website and report it and then, you know, maybe catches up 3 months later. Right. So now there's a little bit more of a consistency on that process. Yes. Yes.

I would say the increase in tourist development collections are more related to the different events or things like the hurricane that drive people here than necessarily Airbnb driving that up. But I'm sure there are some accounts of somebody that during Sun 'n Fun always rented out the garage apartment but they would just kind of do it here and there. Yeah. And they would say, I didn't even know I was supposed to pay. Right. But now when they started doing it through Airbnb, it's getting paid. Right. But I think what outweighs that is just the number of people coming to Polk County. Yeah.

And it keeps Joe from having to climb all those sycamore trees. Yeah. Yeah.

To go catch the trees.

Gives him more time to innovate and make things better for the process of paying taxes.

Yeah, it is, like I said, it's a very interesting area. We have a lot of tools to try to collect it, but we're having to change. You know, interesting, Chrissanne, is, you know, what's next? 'Cause this industry has never been stagnant more than about 5 or 6 years. Something new has been introduced, which has had to change how we approach it. Airbnb's the hot thing, HomeAway, you know, those type platforms are the hot thing. What's the next thing? Because there'll be something different.

Do you have any idea?

I have no idea. Oh, okay. But it will be something different. And the other interesting thing, Airbnb, one of the reasons they don't want to share information with us, really, they don't— what they've told us in our negotiations with them, we don't mind sharing it with the tax collector, the taxes. They don't. They're very fearful of other government regulation. They're very fearful. And the county commission has talked about this in previous years. You know, there are neighborhoods in the northeast part of the county that if you were to walk around the neighborhood, probably 60% of the houses in that neighborhood are owned by somebody from Europe, right? And are short-term rentals. And the other 40% that it's their actual permanent home get frustrated by that, right? Because people come in, they're vacationing, they're partying. Right.

The absentee owner is never as vigilant as the person who's living there.

So the county has wrestled with years ago You know, do we regulate it? Do we say there are certain areas of the county you cannot have more than this amount? Right. And that's the main reason Airbnb does not want to share who their clients are because of fear of government trying to come in and regulate that. That's happened in San Francisco. Somewhere else they've had problems with that. But that's the concern they have. In regards to that regulation, not from the collection of taxes. They know they need to collect the tax. It's more from government coming in and putting restrictions, right?

And I think I was a little afraid when I put my house on Airbnb just because I thought that I was breaking some law that I didn't know existed. And, you know, I was just gonna just avoid, avoid getting in trouble, gonna go to debtor's prison. But as, as the process unfolded and, and things were starting to, to normalize a little bit, it, it felt more comfortable, you know, like I didn't feel like like I was going around and breaking, cutting corners. And I'm not a person who wants to break the law. So I'm sure there are people out there who are trying to find ways to do things that I'm not worrying about doing, 'cause I want to pay Joe Tedder what I owe Joe Tedder. And he's a very nice man.

He's not like the Sheriff of Nottingham.

No, he's a nice man. Right, right. I just really wanted to cover, we'd love to have you come back on the show again in the future. I really wanted to talk about Airbnb specifically today, but we can talk about what's coming next or what you've got in the pipeline down the road. Another show.

Well, the biggest thing is we need the citizens', the taxpayers' assistance in making sure that they come to our office when they can't use other platforms to get something done. Okay. Use the mail, use the internet. If it's a simple transaction, you can do it that way because we've hired all the people we can hire to take care of the inflow of people coming into the offices, and it costs a tremendous amount of money to do that. It's a lot cheaper for me to do something through the mail or through the internet. And we're faced with offices filling up with transactions. Usually about 60% of the people that come in the office on any given day could have done their work in another method.

Right. Well, why don't we take care of it? So that's driver's license renewals, tag renewals, most of the tag renewals, registration renewals, things like that. So tell people who are listening where you want them to go to find out if they can renew online and save themselves the trip.

Go to polktexas.com and you should be able to do everything from there.

And what can't you do from the internet? What are the things that they would have to come in to do?

If they're transferring a title for a vehicle or if they're doing a driver's license, getting a new driver's license, not necessarily just renewing, but if they're having to come in and get a new picture. But pretty much your driver's license, you should be able to renew it every other time through the mail. Okay. Or online. Perfect. So we're really— we've done a variety of different things. We have a kiosk system in both our Lakeland office and our Northridge office where you can actually walk in, go to a kiosk machine, renew your tag that way. Sometime later this month or the 1st of March, we'll have those in two Publixes. Oh, cool. I think the one at Oak Ridge and the one at Grove Park. So you can do it on the weekends or later at night, go in and just renew your tag through this kiosk machine. It actually spits out your decal. So we have a thing called express pickup where if Chrissanne Long, 'cause what we found is a lot of people that walk in the door do it because it's their birthday and they just waited to the last minute. Right.

So now you can go online. I've never done that.

Yeah. This is a cool system. You can go online, it asks you which office you wanna pick it up, and you go, "I wanna pick it up in Bartow." You fill out all the information, you pay for it, we send you an email about an hour later saying it's ready. You just walk in, go to the front desk, say, "Hey, I'm Joe here to pick up my renewal." They hand it to you and then you leave. I love it. Awesome. We never have to issue a ticket. We never have to make you sit. You never have to wait. And so by surveying, we're big into surveying and listening to, you know, we found out that the majority of them are waiting to the last minute. So we devised a system to try to address that.

That's fantastic. And that just goes back to what we were saying earlier as the efficiencies that you've created in the space that you've done in the time that you've been the tax collector. I always see new things and I'm impressed with your adoption of technology as it rolls out. You're not just sitting around saying, well, we can wait until somebody else figures it out. You're actually on the cutting edge of figuring a lot of these things out. Yes. We are.

And I will tell you, the secret to all that is hiring good people. I have the most amazing people that I work with that are, you know, that whole thing, you know, the smartest guy in the room. I'm like the 15th smartest guy when I get all my senior staff together, really bright people that are committed. I mean, and I'm sure other industries do this, but it is not uncommon 3 nights a week by senior staff, a group of people, 5 people are conversing on email till 8 or 9 or 10 o'clock discussing some issue that we're trying to figure out. I mean, it is a passion for all of them to try to do a good job. It is definitely not an 8 to 5 kind of scenario.

And it's a testament to your leadership. And I'm just going to leave it at that because I don't think there's anybody who could do a better job than you do in Polk County. And I thank you for your service. And I hope that you continue. I hope that you take that record someday. I hope so too.

I hope so too.

Thank you for being here, Joe. I appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for listening everyone, and make sure to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and automatically get the latest weekly episode. Remember to leave us a review. We promise to read every one. You can always find all of our episodes at elevatepolk.com. If there's something you wanna hear about on an upcoming episode, reach out to us on Facebook at Elevate Polk.