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REMER - Cass County has 5,596 old tax record and assessment books stored in a courthouse sub-basement, Katy Norby, county recorder reported Tuesday to the county board now that a seven-month inventory has been completed.

She obtained quotes from three vendors, with the lowest showing it will cost the county $100,000 to have those books, dating back into the 1800's scanned and converted to digital records for the county's computer main frame records. From those digital records, the county could also make compact disc copies, Norby said.

Norby said a contractor could scan the county's records in about two to three months. If the county were to scan the books internally, it would mean hiring additional employees and purchasing special scanners to handle the oddly shaped books, she said.

State law requires maintaining records only from the 1800's and years ending in "0" or "1" for years in the 1900's and 2000's, she said.

Chief Financial Officer Larry Wolfe told the board that having the complete record has enabled the county to verify land ownerships and land transactions through the decades to clearly settle land ownership questions that have arisen in court cases, potentially saving the county money in otherwise lost lawsuits.

To have the records digitized would enable much faster record scanning for information than is possible now when employees have to manually search through paper record books, Wolfe said. The books aren't even stored in sequential order in the sub-basement.[[In-content Ad]]Norby also showed the board how leaking sewer and water pipes in the sub-basement ceiling have causing damage to some of the record books. The pages were crumbling from one 1800's book she brought to the meeting.

Commissioner Jim Demgen said he thought the proposal to use some of the county's fund balance to copy the books made sense to prevent future lawsuit costs. Commissioners Jim Dowson and Jeff Peterson, however, proposed and the board voted to approve referring the expenditure to the budget committee for its recommendation before the board will consider further whether to spend the $100,000.

The board did vote Tuesday to spend up to $5,000 to permit Norby to purchase 300 storage boxes to protect other old records.

Norby reported one employee who has been assigned to catalog old records in the sub-basement has been and will continue scanning old county attorney records and personnel files. Those records are confidential and should be scanned by a trusted employee rather than an outside contractor, Norby said. They are standard size pages and can easily be scanned with any standard scanner, she said.

Wolfe said the county also has been scanning board meeting packets, which has proven a major time saver when looking up documentation to go with prior board actions.

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