State awards grants for records management

Aug. 17—The New York State Archives has awarded grants to several area governments and agencies under the Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund program for the 2023-2024 grant cycle.

Most of the grants awarded locally are for inactive records management.

According to this year's award list, in Delaware County the village of Margaretville was awarded $22,685 and the Walton Central School District was awarded $50,135.

Margaretville village officials were not available Thursday for comment on how the village plans to spend the grant funds. The village was awarded $26,176 from the state program two years ago, also for inactive records management.

S. Corey Phraner, Walton Central School District records management officer, said Thursday that the school district has not received the official award notice yet, and because of the dollar amount, the grant needs to go through an additional review.

The school district plans to use the grant to fund three projects — conduct inventory of inactive files for the operations and maintenance department, relocate the current inactive records storage room from the basement to the first floor and purchase a high density model shelving system for inactive records.

In Otsego County, the town of Richfield was awarded $13,891 and the city of Oneonta was awarded $60,450.

Richfield Town Supervisor Dan Sullivan said via email Thursday that the town received acknowledgement of the award and is "awaiting the release of the funds so that we can engage a records management expert to begin work."

The town's records were last organized in 1996, Sullivan said, and that as supervisor he prioritized getting assistance for an update and re-organization.

"Our plan is to hire an expert to thin out from our records those items that do not require retention any longer, and can be shredded or otherwise discarded," he said. "That action will free up space with which to organize both our town and a significant portion of court records as well. To complete the court records reorganization, we will seek further funding through a [Justice Court Assistance Program] grant in the near future."

The Oneonta Common Council accepted the grant at its meeting Tuesday, Aug. 15. The council also authorized using the funds to pay records management consulting firm K Sickler Murphy for the organization of paper records in preparation for future digitization.

Oneonta Deputy City Clerk Bonnie Cuozzo said the grant funds are designated for the Code Enforcement office. The grant is for Phase 1 of the project, which is preparing the documents. Separate funding will be needed for Phase 2 digitization.

In Schoharie County, the town of Summit was awarded $7,992. Two years ago, the town was awarded $12,242 from the state program, also for inactive records management.

Summit Town Supervisor Harold Vroman said Thursday that the initial grant was to update the town's archive room by going through all records and sorting out what to keep and what to discard.

"That was quite a process," Vroman said.

The recent grant is slated to go toward moving the archive room to a different spot, making it more accessible and code-compliant, and improving shelving, he said.

Additionally, Schoharie County was awarded $74,872 for document conversion and access.

Schoharie County Administrator Korsah Akumfi did not return a request for comment.

The State Archives is part of the Office of Cultural Education under the state Education Department.

According to the grant application guidelines, the Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund program, created in 1989, helps local governments establish records management programs or program components. Local governments must apply for the grants.

The funding comes from fees collected by county clerks and the New York City Register. The amount of grant funding available each year depends on the number of documents recorded and index numbers assigned that year.

The State Archives received 135 applications this grant cycle requesting a little more than $7.9 million, and awarded 87 grants totaling $5.2 million.

Projects awarded grants in the inactive records management category involve planning, developing or improving the management of records during the inactive phase of their life cycle.

Inactive records are defined as records that are used infrequently but must be retained because their retention periods have not yet expired.

Projects could include conducting records inventories and surveys to determine what records they have, identifying obsolete records, improving how they organize and control records and charting a course for the future of their records management programs.

Projects awarded grants for document conversion and access involve converting records to another format through the use of microfilming or imaging.

The guidelines state that microfilming is especially appropriate for records that are used infrequently and have retention periods of ten years or more. Imaging is a valuable tool for enhancing access to records.