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CR2002-166 - purchase of doc management prog . . October 10, 2002 Council Report 2002-166 Approve Purchase of Document Management Computer Program Proposed Action Staff recommends adoption of the following motion: Move to approve an expenditure of no more than $11 ,000 for the purchase of a document manaqement computer proqram. Overview Staff has identified a need for accommodating the storage of permanent documents. Over the past few years, various solutions have been looked at. Those solutions range from purchasing different types of file cabinets that will hold more paper, to finding the room in one of the facilities for storage, to off-site storage. The solution that staff is recommending is digital storage. Primary Issues to Consider . . What documents are permanent? . How are we currently storing documents? . Who will use the program? . Why digital storage? . How will the program work? . Cost of the program ~~ Terry Obermaier, City Clerk Financial Impact: $_11,000 Budgeted: Y/N _N_ Sou rce: various funds Related Documents (CIP, ERP, etc.): . Notes: CounCIl Report ~U()~- 166 Page ~ . Primary Issues to Consider . What documents are permanent? Several of the documents that we produce are permanent records. They include Minutes, Ordinances, Resolutions, Council Reports, Agenda packets, Agreements, Annual Reports, Attorney opinions, Annual budget, Board and Commission Bylaws, Charter, City Code, Correspondence, Project files, Property Tax records, Special Assessments, End of year Financial Reports, Commercial Building Plans, Certificate of Occupancy, Inspection Records etc. There are many, many more. Permanent Records are designated by State Statute. We have adopted the State of Minnesota Retention Schedule. . How are we currently storing documents? Old Minutes and supporting documents are being stored in the vault at City Hall. End of year financial reports are also being stored in the vault. We also have a storage room in the sub basement level. Some documents are being stored in the upstairs level of the Pavilion. Engineering has some records stored in a closet by the employee entrance. Some records are stored off-site. Some files have been stored on microfilm. . Two years ago, we had a Document Management Intern come into the office for an internship. He spent eight weeks organizing the areas. We have produced more documents in the past twenty years than we did in the first one hundred years. We are producing documents at a faster rate today than we ever have. We are running out of space for storage. . Who will use the program? At this time, staff expects that the City Clerk, Finance, Public Works, Inspections, and the Administrative divisions will use the program to save files and eliminate paper storage. Eventually, all departments will find a need to store documents in digital format. It will take a very long time to go back and convert old paper files to digital format, but at least we can begin by eliminating today's paper and the need for more storage areas. . Why digital storage? The Department of Administration, State of Minnesota, is still advocating microfilm because they are not sure how long the lifespan of a disk is. There is a problem with that. It is getting more and more difficult to get service on the microfilm reader. Finding the information is very time consuming. Archiveable quality is very expensive. We have some film now that cannot be read. Fortunately, we still have the paper . documents that they were filmed from. Council Report 2002-166 Page J . The National and State Historical Societies are advocating digital storage. Putting the information on a CD or similar media will allow access through any computer. It will also afford word search capabilities. One can simply enter the word or phrase that would be found in the text that is being searched and the program will bring up all the documents that contain the word or phrase. The program will also highlight the text in each document, so the searcher will only need to look at highlighted areas. This makes finding information faster. A lot of information can be placed on one disk. The storage space required is minimal. I have about one hundred years of information on four CDs. That takes up about one and one quarter inch on a very short shelf. It will be much easier to comply with State and Federal laws that require us to provide information in a timely manner. . How will the program work? Documents will be scanned into a computer and saved as a tiff image. Those documents will then be saved in a folder until a series is completed, usually one year. The information will then be transferred to a CD. The CD will contain a mini program and will automatically open when inserted into the CD drive of a computer. A short tutorial will explain how to use the program. All of the information on the CD will be . available to the user. A copy will be made for City Hall; one for the Historical Society; and one will be made to store off site, possibly a safety deposit box at the bank. Every few years the CDs will be checked for integrity. As technology changes, the information will be transferred to the new media. We can use this storage method as our permanent storage method. . Cost of the program In the past, staff has gotten quotes on the full program. At this time, we have a quote on a smaller version of the program. The database is a smaller database. The cost for this scaled down program, with the functions that we need is $10,549.00. The annual cost of maintaining the program will be about $600. The initial cost will come from City Clerk, $5,000; Public Works, $1,000; Inspections, $2,000; Administration. $1,000; Sewer and Water, $1,000; and contingency budgets, $549. Alternatives 1. Move to approve the expenditure to purchase a records management program 2. Take no action, thereby denying the expenditure . Staff recommends alternative one.