Sun Will Set on County Clerk’s Five-Year, $5M Records’ Project

CREST HAVEN — As 2010 prepares to enter history, the Cape May County Clerk’s Office is bidding a fond “adieu” to P.A.R.I.S.
Not the French capital nor the famous woman, but a five-year, $5 million program that helped the county and municipalities get records straight, copied and electronically accessible.
County Clerk Rita M. Fulginiti appeared before freeholders on Tue., Dec. 14, the regular meeting, to announce the program’s end.
Through that grant-funded program, paper records were transformed into electronic form and records of all sorts are securely backed up at a nondescript building in Dennis Township, about 20 miles north of the county seat.
“In these last two weeks of 2010, we are closing out the Records and Information Management (RIM) Office organized by the County Clerk in 2005 to manage and implement projects funded through the Public Archives and Records Infrastructure Support (P.A.R.I.S.) grant program,” Fulginiti stated.
Because of the diligent work performed by the RIM staff, Lizabeth Shay, Jason Redman, Adrienne Kelly and Melissa Mistic, everything from original, hand-written freeholder meeting minutes, cattle earmarks, deeds, marriages, wills and mortgages have been preserved.
The program’s funding made possible the preservation and professional conservation treatment of 187 volumes of public records of vital importance to land title researchers, genealogists and historians in Cape May County.
Included are:
• 73 volumes from the County Clerk’s office including deeds, marriages, land and naturalization records from 1695-1963.
• 12 volumes Surrogates office, wills, reports and inventories from 1786 to 1924.
• 13 volumes, Board of Chosen Freeholders almshouse Records from 1821-1934.
Fulginiti told freeholders that, due to the program, “Public records throughout Cape May County are managed more efficiently and vital records are protected in case of disaster.”
A disaster can be defined as anything from an electronic server that crashes to a storm-induced building catastrophe.
Although the sun will set on the program since no funding exists to perpetuate it, the county and municipalities will “continue to be served by it through the technology infrastructure built to electronically back up vital data of county and municipal government as well as electronic records and forms and historical records preservation.”
Fulginiti lauded the staff for completing all the obligations mandated.
Shay and Redman have found outside employment. Kelly is being transferred to a vacant position in county government, and Mistic continues to work in the County Clerk’s Office, Fulginiti.
Most visible part of the program is the Records Recovery Center in Dennis Township.
There, in a windowless block building, on high ground, away from possible flooding, electronic records are stored.
Included among the records stored there is a wide variety including accounting, budget, payroll, GIS, public health and ordinances.
In 2006, the project was awarded the PARIS Disaster Recovery Award for Excellence, and serves as a model for leveraging county and state monies for disaster preparedness and business continuity.
Municipalities that were not connected to the recovery center electronically before funding ended have implemented web-based backup systems for off-site storage and retrieval of essential records in the grant’s final year.
Fulginiti said the exact number of records preserved in the program was not known, other than, “it has been a whole lot.”
Aside from electronically storing the documents, all of the fragile, irreplaceable books and records were preserved, repaired, rebound, scanned and microfilmed.
The collection dates to 1695 with myriad details over the years from the County Clerks, Surrogates, and Boards of Chosen Freeholders, as well as 15 municipalities.
PARIS funding was competitive, according to documents supplied by the clerk’s office.
This county was ranked among the top grant recipients over the program’s life, and got $5,053,069 to develop and advance:
• Countywide records management
• Imaging and electronic information management
• Disaster recovery and backup of essential records.
• Preservation and conservation of historic records.
“Due to the current economic environment, there is no funding available for program initiatives or staff after Aug. 31, 2010,” said the clerk. Staffing came from Clerk’s Office and Management Information Systems.
Shay was records manager; Jones records storage center; Kelly, imaging and electronics information management; Redman, records recovery center.
According to the clerk, the program “had a tremendous influence on the way that records are perceived and handled throughout the county. The program has left a legacy of superior methods of managing records which translates to great efficiency and improved public records access.”
In the Records Storage Center in Dennis Township, are storage of physical records of 30 county departments and the state Superior Court.
In 2006, grant funding made possible the purchase of mobile shelving for the center, which increased the county’s storage capacity by 40 percent.
After it completed a countywide records inventory, the RIM staff reviewed, analyzed and revamped the center’s contents. That also made it more available to county departments.
It also made possible streamlining of transfer and state-approved destruction of eligible documents.
RecordsMine, a records inventory and destruction software program, was piloted and installed to track records inventory throughout the county.
The system is presently being used by county departments to identify locations of stored records and trimmed time spent looking for and retrieving paper documents.
Since the program began, it is estimated that about 100 tons of eligible records were destroyed. That alone reduced storage and management costs, and cut potential liability.
Each county department has as assigned “records coordinator” who oversees retention, control and retrieval of data. The RIM staff trained each of those.
The RIM program assisted 12 of the county’s 16 municipalities with indexing, repackaging and purging files for storage or disposition. There are nine municipalities using RecordsMine software as shared service offered by the county to search and manage records inventory.
The program also helped municipalities get rid of about 25 tons of eligible records.
During the program’s life, all 16 municipalities have taken part in some form of records assistance.
Contact Campbell at (609) 886-8600 Ext 28 or at: al.c@cmcherald.com