The Weights and Measures Department is headed by the Director (Sealer) of Weights and Measures, who is appointed by the Board of Supervisors and is responsible for the administration and enforcement of all applicable laws and regulations related to weighing and measuring devices, quantity control, and petroleum inspections.

Office Responsibilities

The Director (Sealer) of Weights and Measures is responsible for the preservation and maintenance of standards of measurement essential to value comparison for consumers and fair competition for industry. This charge is implemented through device inspections, quantity control, weighmaster inspections, and petroleum inspections.

The device inspection program protects both the buyer and seller by the testing of weighing and measuring devices to ensure their correctness. This provides for uniform standards of weight and measure when the price of goods depends on the accuracy of these devices. Most devices, including retail scales and meters, are generally tested yearly.

The quantity control program controls the accurate reproduction of quantity standards and price extension in commercial transactions and provides for informative labeling of identity, quantity, and responsibility of packaged commodities. Quantity control inspections including commodity quantity verification, accurate price calculations, and advertised price correctness are performed at all establishments that conduct transactions upon weight, measure, volume, time, or count.

The weighmaster inspection program protects persons having a financial interest in transactions which are required to be based upon a written statement of quantity. Businesses that use heavy capacity scales such as moving companies or rock, sand, and gravel companies are generally weighmasters.

Petroleum inspection assures that petroleum products meet the state safety and performance quality standards . Some counties maintain their own labs, but most counties submit samples to the state for brand, purity, and octane sampling. Within most counties, the Director (Sealer) of Weights and Measures is also the Agricultural Commissioner.