Records Management in Cape Coral

by Carolyn Stewart

Wall-to-wall paper. That is how the City of Cape Coral's City Clerk's office might have described their records management system a year and a half ago. Cape Coral has a population of 90,000, 114 square miles and has been rated as one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. As the city grows so does the volume of paper, creating problems of indexing, storage and retrieval. The Records Management Division of the City Clerks Office is responsible for the storage, preservation, retrieval and disposition of the official records of the

City of Cape Coral.

The City of Cape Coral has implemented a document imaging program. In June of 1996 a imaging committee was organized. The committee consisted of the Records Coordinator, ITS staff, and the supervisor of building permits. After three months of meetings and research they put together an imaging pilot program. The program was installed in April of 1997. The Records Management Division has three staff members and the records coordinator. The staff members with job titles of imaging technicians are scanning the current documents in addition to the backlog.

The following equipment was purchased for the pilot program from HTE in Orlando Florida. and Decision Management Co. located in California. The software package they are using is called Questys and is a very user-friendly program. The equipment purchased was three Fujitsu 3096EX Video scanner stations, including a PC station and interface with 20" monitors, and an Anatech Engineering scanner with stand, cables, & accessories. Other items purchased included Windows NT advanced server for 10 users, Windows NT jukebox file server, MSSQL 10 user (HP 40GB, 16 slot jukebox), 40GB HP 40fx-2 optical jukebox, HP DesignJet 700 E-size ink plotter along with all required software & license. The cost of the total package including training and installation was approximately $118,000.00.

The City's main computer system is HTE and they felt confident with HTE because of the service they provided for the current computer system. All view stations are connected via the City's computer network allowing for future expansion of other departments.

The Records Coordinator who was the project manager for the program felt it important to involve all City department staff and get them excited about this new technology. A committee was organized consisting of a staff member from each department. HTE held demonstrations using the same equipment purchased. The committee met once a week and discussed how the imaging system would benefit them personally as well as their departments. The committee created flow charts to determine what documents would be placed on the imaging system. Once the equipment was installed by Decision Management, training was provided by their personnel to the Imaging Technicians, Records Coordinator and building department key operators. The training consisted of two days of lecture and hands on experience.

When finished with the training most of the staff were able to utilize the scanning, indexing and research features of the system. Classes were held for other departments, which gave a brief overview of the system and how it works in conjunction with the network. Some hands-on training was given. A computer was placed on the front counter in the City Clerks Office so the citizens would have access. Training classes were given to the citizens on how to utilize the system. The training was advertised in the local paper. The classes were very successful. A training booklet was developed for use in the citizen's classes.

The imaging program address's City Clerk staff shortages and the time required for performing the requested research of public information. The system has helped eliminate the need for large off-site and on-site storage facilities and still meet the City's needs for vital records and archival storage. The Records Coordinator developed a tracking system for research request. Through this tracking it was identified what documents were being researched frequently and the amount of time it was taking for retrieval.

The use of the microfilm system for searching for a specific piece of information regarding a particular building site, contract, or City Council minutes was an extremely time consuming process. It required locating and referencing a number of mixed individual files on different media such as computer files, microfiche and paper documents. One example of searching for information with the old system would be in the building department. A street map file contains location information and a computer program cross-references the site location number to the owner of the property. From there an employee would have to access a set of microfiche to view permits, building plans & etc. In some cases an employee may have to search through hundreds of hard copy, previously archived to locate required information. The imaging system provides two second retrieval time. It provides the City with on line documents, high capacity document storage and quick-response document searches.

Obstacles encountered with the imaging system have been limited. Financial constraints were somewhat of an obstacle. A research study was completed by the Records Coordinator and City Clerk on what equipment was required to keep up with the growing mound of paper records throughout the city departments. The initial cost of the system seemed high, but overall costs are worth the dollars saved in staff time and storage space. Motivating the end uses and technical support to see the benefits of using the system seems to be the biggest obstacle. It seems that change is not easily accepted in the every day work system. I believe once the departments are on line with the system they will wonder how they got along without it. The Clerk's office tries to keep staff and public motivated by publishing articles about the status of the imaging system, and holding imaging user group meetings quarterly.

Cape Corals imaging program has grown since the initial installation. We now have 35 concurrent license for viewing the images, six scanning stations, and have installed a RAID system providing for various levels of error recovery, fault tolerance and increased performance. The imaging system was awarded the International Institute of Municipal Clerks Technology Award of Excellence in 1998. The imaging system has enabled the City to provide quick and easy access of public records to citizens and staff. It has reduced the amount of time a citizen needs to wait on a document information request and provides safe storage for permanent and vital records. Through information request tracking, it has been found that manual retrieval of a document and research of subjects requesting information average approximately one hour. Retrieval of focus information possible with the archival subsystem will increase the quality while reducing the time of research to 15 minutes or less. This will result in annual savings of over 4,500 work hours, and a cost savings to the City of $90,000 per annum.

In examining the methods of past practice it was apparent that document imaging in a client/server environment was the technology the City needed. Future plans are to connect the imaging system to the Internet, implement workflow and give all staff access to viewing of the documents. The flow of good government is directly tied to how quickly we can process and retrieve public information.

Carolyn Stewart is Records Coordinator for the City of Cape Coral Florida. She also is the owner of a document and imaging consulting business, The Dunn & Stewart Information Management Group. She can be reached at 1-941-574-0418 or carolyn_stewart@yahoo.com.