Minutes - 2006/11/13 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mounds View City Council November 13, 2006 Regular Meeting Page 8 Director Ericson indicated that, if approved, from January 1, 2007 forward every document would be archived into the system for future use. Council Member Flaherty said that it states that Roseville has made a significant expense in the software and Mounds View will pay maintenance fees and he would like to know what the maintenance fee would be. Director Ericson indicated it would be approximately $700 to $800 annually and noted that the software cost was around $75,000 to Roseville so the cost for the City to take part is the hardware and scanning costs and creating an index for those documents. Council Member Flaherty asked whether the personnel hours are included in the estimate. Director Ericson indicated that Mounds View Staff will do the scanning from January 1 going forward and they will undertake the scanning of the documents prior to that. Council Member Flaherty asked what microfilm looks like and asked whether it is necessary to switch from microfilm to digital media. Director Ericson indicated that it is not critical but it may be necessary if the City wants all documentation to be searchable in the same location. He then said that it is possible that the second year costs could be less if the City decides to maintain the microfilm reader but it is already getting harder to read the existing microfilm. Council Member Flaherty indicated the City needs to do this but he is looking at it for ways to save money. Council Member Thomas agreed with going ahead with the two year implementation because that will assist with the goal of increasing communication with residents. She then said that she would like to suggest that Staff stay on top of technology moving forward to do handwritten notes and keep in mind whether the City needs to keep those types of things for the future. Council Member Gunn said that she feels that everything should be done because it would be difficult if one piece you were looking for was on microfilm. She then asked if there is the ability for an adjoining City to share documents by email. Director Ericson indicated that is possible. Finance Director Beer indicated that the microfilm is the only copy of some documents and some of them are beginning to degrade so the sooner the City gets them converted the better. Mayor Marty indicated that he has spent days going through boxes of information to locate files on specific topics. He then said that there is the possibility for people to take documents from the files but, if it is electronically preserved, it will always be available to Staff and residents.