Funding Your Technology and Archive Conversion Needs

Transcription

1 Funding Your Technology and Archive Conversion Needs Presented at the NACRC Legislative Conference March 5, 2011 Facilitators: Larry Burtness & Carol Foglesong

2 Technology funding The question was asked repeatedly Who has a technology fund and what can they do with it? Chart created and distributed in 12/2010; revised in 2/2011 Will need to review/update annually 50 states + D.C. (but we ll say 51 states)

3 Caveat Not everyone will agree with our interpretation of their statute Reading/understanding statutes is hard We did the best we could This is a discussion generator; not an academic, footnoted paper

4 Summary statistics 13 states have no legislation 38 states have enacted legislation Not always uniform throughout the state; legislation may be permissive AL passed state law county by county over multiple years CA requires adoption by county board DE has 1 of 3 counties using OR requires county adoption and only 2 of 36 counties using

5 How long around? Oldest? NM 1978 IL 1983 NJ & AZ 1986 FL 1987 Only NJ increased from 1986 $1 to 1990 $2 Newest = Hawaii 2009

6 States without legislation 13 States have not AK, CT, GA, ID, LA, NE, NY, RI, SC, SD, UT, VT, WY NE and SD are working on it for 2011 or 2012

7 What can the money do? Bad example from WA: from housing authority, SOS Heritage Center, straight to State Archives labor? technology conferences/seminars? conversion of historic film to images? conversion of historic books to images? redaction of personal information from images? preservation/restoration of historical books? technology training?

8 Variations on funding Per page Per document Only certain types of documents DC requires renewal every 5 years (started in 1999)

9 Highs and lows Per Document $10/doc (MN) $7/doc (OH) $6.50/doc (DC) $5/doc (MA, MI, HI, OK, PA, TX, VA, & WA) $4/document (AZ & NM) $3/doc (IL, ME, NV, & ND) $2/doc (NH, NJ, & TN) $1.25/doc (MO) $1/doc (CO, DE, IA, KY, MS, & MT) Per Page $5/1 st page + $4.50/add l page (FL) $2/page (KS) $1/page (CA) $1/1 st 10 pages + $1 for each add l 10 pages (WV) Percentages 10% or $3.20/doc (NC) 5% of some fees (OR)

10 Bad examples Nominations from the floor? Your state? A neighboring state? Technology money collected and sent to the state; money doesn t go to the jurisdiction that earned it and/or there s no fixed formula for distribution Technology money collected and not used to improve land records

11 Good examples Fund clearly defined for recording jurisdiction only and can t be filtered off Fund can t replace general operating revenues (i.e., no salaries, no paper supplies, etc.) Some flexibility in wording (i.e., restore historic records; training on new hardware or software) Nominations from the floor?

12 Other people s hands/eyes Whoa, look how much money is coming in by recording! Before 2008 Currently Think of how much we could gather for abc or xyz Be able to explain saving your technology fees

13 Know your purpose What do you want to achieve by asking for technology fund? Carefully describe your need in the proposed legislation Use examples of what other states have done (good examples, not bad examples!)

14 Statewide or local imposition? Best practice seems to be that legislation should apply to all recording jurisdictions in your state Should there be differences based on population? What about helping smaller jurisdictions? Is fee an up to amount? What happens when someone decreases?

15 Changing legislation Be careful what you wish for If you ask for it, they may take it Can you live with what you have? Expand your support base (title, bankers, escrow, all real estate folks plus your state association of counties)

16 Ideas worthy of changes Collect more money to share with your have-not recorders Establishing formulas for state versus recorder funding

17 Reporting How much gathered, what will spend it on, timeframes A regular reporting mechanism = sound practice May help protect your technology fund Do it even if not required

18 Thanks! Larry Burtness Chief Deputy Recorder, Washoe County, NV and Carol Foglesong Assistant Comptroller, Orange County Comptroller s Office, FL