Licensing staff: short-term-rental compliance slipped to 88% as new analytics finds unregistered units

Christie Consul, licensing and compliance manager, said the county's short-term-rental compliance rate dropped to 88% this year after the department began using a new analytics platform that identified additional listings.

"We were 90% last year. Right now where you're at, we were over the 90%. This year... we were at 88," Christie Consul said, adding the new vendor revealed properties previously missed by the old system. She told commissioners the platform produces court-ready evidence and has already flagged about 200 additional rental units the county is working to bring into compliance.

Consul said the department has mailed at least one letter campaign so far and that a newly filled compliance-inspection position has already contacted more than 25 businesses lacking occupation tax certificates. "If that doesn't happen, then we will refer them to code enforcement" and the county attorney's office for possible citation and court action, she said.

The presentation also covered open-records performance and occupation-tax renewals: open-records average close times were 3.4 days last year and 3.9 days year-to-date against a five-day goal, and licensing reported 7,131 open-records requests so far this year. Consul said the department aims to bring short-term-rental compliance back above 90% by year-end and is working with code enforcement and the county attorney for enforcement steps against repeat noncompliance.