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Secretary of State to get more help

The state’s Emergency Commission has given Secretary of State Al Jaeger the go-ahead to hire three more staffers. As Prairie Public's Dave Thompson reports, the Commission gave permission to keep up with the increasing workload.

The Secretary of State deals with corporate and contractor registrations. The office is only open to the public six hours a day – because Jaeger says the staff needs time to catch up.

State Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Ray Holmberg (R-Grand Forks) is a member of the Emergency Commission. He voted “yes” – but cautioned Jaeger.

“I'll be frank -- I'm very disappointed in the reduction of office hours," Holmberg said. "And I would hope that when we approve this, sooner rather than later, the office would go back to standard state hours, or the request to continue these will have a darn tough time in Senate appropriations.”

Jaeger is also a member of the Commission. He says there has been a lot of misunderstanding about the reduction of his office hours.

“This uninterrupted time actually helped decrease our turnaround from six  to four weeks," Jaeger told the Emergency Commission. "Right now, we're not seeing any of our walk-in traffic being affected. It's going quite smoothly. It is working, and that was the whole idea of it.” 

"The level of economic activity in North dakota is way beyond what we were expecting," said Gov. Jack Dalrymple, who chairs the Commission. "This has a very direct and very immediate impact on business registration and licensing. There's just no way to avoid it, and no way to manage your way around it."

Jaeger’s office also received money for overtime and for temporary help.

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