Pressing concern for records storage

Posted on Dec 12, 2009 in Records Management News

Here is a lead for any­one near Iron­ton, OH 45638

http://www.irontontribune.com/news/2009/dec/11/judges-not-looking-additional-funds/

Judges not look­ing for addi­tional funds

By Teresa Moore | The Tribune

Pub­lished Fri­day, Decem­ber 11, 2009

The judges say they are mak­ing do.

Dur­ing bud­get hear­ings ear­lier this week, Lawrence County Juve­nile Pro­bate Judge David Payne and Lawrence County Munic­i­pal Court Judge Don­ald Cap­per told the Lawrence County Com­mis­sion that while their offices and under­staffed are over­worked, they under­stand the county’s finan­cial plight and have tried to live within their bud­gets in the year com­ing to a close.

Nei­ther asked for addi­tional money in next year’s bud­get. The bud­get hear­ings are meant to deter­mine what each office’s needs are and how all these needs can be met with the county’s dwin­dling revenues.

Com­mis­sion­ers antic­i­pate hav­ing $1.5 mil­lion in its gen­eral fund due to slug­gish sales taxes, antic­i­pated cuts in state allo­ca­tions and a drop in inter­est income.

Payne said there are two vacan­cies in juve­nile court.

Those vacan­cies will not be filled; the duties of those jobs will be given to other employ­ees who is tak­ing on the addi­tional work assignments.

“As much as is pos­si­ble we’d like for you to fund our bud­get,” Payne told the commissioners.

Payne does have out­side sources of rev­enue that can be used dur­ing the year to pay salaries and other expenses, but he needs the commission’s money at the begin­ning of the year and can likely trans­fer money back to the gen­eral fund later on as he obtains the fed­eral and state monies.

Payne said in pre­vi­ous years, it was almost as if he were penal­ized for stay­ing within his budget.

If he stayed within his bud­get and was able to give money back at the end of the year, then his bud­get was cut the fol­low­ing year.

Cap­per said while he is mind­ful of the county’s bud­get con­straints, he is under­staffed and prob­a­bly needs at least one pro­ba­tion offi­cer as well as a clerk.

Cap­per said he may be able to save money by part­ner­ing with the Lawrence County Com­mon Pleas Court for home con­fine­ment. Right now the Cabell County, W.Va., pro­ba­tion agency han­dles in-home con­fine­ment for Capper’s court but charges Lawrence County for the elec­tronic super­vi­sion units whether they are in use or not.

“Home con­fine­ment is bet­ter finan­cially but if some­thing bad hap­pens, you get the blame,” Stephens said “I don¹t envy your position.”

Cap­per said one of his most press­ing con­cerns is that of record stor­age. He is almost out of room at his cour­t­house for stor­age of records that must be kept. Com­mis­sion­ers said there may be room for record stor­age at other county buildings.

Cap­per said in the past he has dipped into his cap­i­tal improve­ments line item to make ends meet in other areas, and is not putting money into that account.

This has left him with lit­tle cash for such things as park­ing lot repairs. He also needs to upgrade some com­puter software.

Bet­ter soft­ware could alle­vi­ate the bur­den on his small staff.

He cred­ited his staff with mak­ing a bad sit­u­a­tion work. He said some­times staff mem­bers work off the clock to get work done.

“We’re busy, we’re really busy,” Cap­per said. “We’re try­ing to be self-sufficient. We col­lect (in fees and court costs) about what we take out (of the gen­eral fund). We don’t like to raise fees but the ones who use the court ought to be the ones pay­ing for it.”

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Com­pli­ments of File­Man Research

Cary

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Cary F. McGov­ern, CRM

File­Man