Bergen County has a total of 70 municipal governments within its borders – the most of any county in New Jersey. Bergen County has embraced the concept of serving as the records management hub for its constituent municipalities, and has sponsored the following shared services projects benefitting its municipalities:

• County-sponsored needs assessments
• County-sponsored records purging
• County-sponsored clerk-to-clerk connectivity

Bergen County has taken advantage of multi-county projects developed by other counties throughout the state, recognizing the value of these projects financially, operationally and in the acquisition of additional training. Bergen County has participated in the following multi-county projects:

•Salem County-sponsored SAA training
•DARM/NARA disaster prevention and response training

 

Project: Assessments of current records management procedures within local government and strategic plans to expand and improve records programs.

Benefits and Impact: Bergen County government and 62 of its 70 municipalities. Each participant now has a plan to move forward in creating a more robust, efficient records management program, as well as recommendations for county-wide shared services, which will all ultimately lead to cost savings.

Funding: Funded over three years, beginning in PARIS Program Year 2006-2007, totaling $421,079. The economy of scale provided with a shared service needs assessment project also ensures significant cost-savings; solo projects average from $20,000 to $50,000 depending on the size of the municipality. At $20,000 each, the total cost would have been $1,240,000 if these services were procured separately in Bergen County. The county’s commitment to providing these services, and implementing single procurement, has therefore saved the taxpayers of New Jersey nearly $800,000.

Quick statistics for Bergen County needs assessments and strategic plans: With 70 municipalities, the most of any county in the state, Bergen County provided needs assessments to interested municipalities over three years. So far, a total of 62 municipalities have received needs assessments, records inventories, and strategic plans, which have been approved by the State Records Committee, and are eligible to participate in further PARIS funding opportunities.

Before the PARIS Grants Program, most of New Jersey’s local governments had little records management infrastructure and were unprepared for the passage of the “Open Public Records Act”, Public Law 2001, ch. 404, now commonly known as OPRA. Records management needs assessments and strategic plans, provided in the shared services model with county sponsorship, utilized a single vendor facilitating the identification across local governments of common problems, needs, and solutions that might be addressed by future shared services projects. This essential first step immediately allows local governments to better meet the requirements of OPRA, providing citizens faster access to government records, and ensures that future projects will be based on real needs and current conditions. Completion of these assessments is a requirement before any future PARIS grant funds may be awarded. By completing this eligibility requirement for its municipalities, Bergen County assures future grant funds will reach as many of its municipalities in the most effective manner as possible and that future grant awards are expended on established best practices that will help deliver more transparent government services to the public. The needs assessment and strategic plan projects provide:

• Individual assessment of current conditions in each municipality, covering:
  • general records management procedures,
  • use of technology for records management, and
  • analysis of the strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) in relation to the municipality records management programs.
• Individual strategic plans for each municipality, covering both short-term and long-term goals.
• Individual conservation analysis for historical records, including preservation recommendations.
• Agency-wide records inventories to identify, locate, sort and prioritize documents within the municipality’s custody. In total, ??? cubic feet of records were inventoried in the county, with ???? cubic feet being permanent/historic records.
• A summary report of all findings across agencies, highlighting common problems, and offering common shared services

The results of the Bergen County municipal assessments and strategic plans pointed toward shared services opportunities with the County in the detailed organization and purging of municipality records; development of electronic document management systems (EDMS); disaster recovery; and technology and infrastructure.

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The needs assessments and strategic plans found that municipalities have an unmanageable number of records, many of which have reached the end of their retention periods. Unmanaged and expired records present urgent problems, including a lack of storage space, inability to access valuable and needed records efficiently, non-compliance with legal retention requirements, and potential for additional discovery during litigation. County sponsorship of the purging and reorganization project includes:

• sorting the records into proper record series
• grouping like records together
• re-boxing all records into proper cubic foot containers
• labeling all boxes with their content information--including series name, office of origin and destruction date
• preparing permanent records for proper archival storage
• identifying all records past their retention period
• preparing state destruction approval forms
• destroying records past retention

View the newspaper article, "Carlstadt Papers Pile Higher and Higher," The Leader, September 4, 2008.

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This project was developed to demonstrate the capabilities of clerk-to-clerk connectivity in diverse areas of government and to begin establishing connectivity between counties and their municipalities. Municipal Clerks are required by law to file election documents, and then forward them to the County Clerk’s office. The old paper-based system was cumbersome and inefficient. The new system, of scanning and filing the records in electronic format, permits instant and easy filing. In addition, the design and preparation of election ballots and set up of voting machines without re-keying components of those documents saves time and reduces human error. Establishing this specific project permits these municipalities to expand their participation in the County’s state-certified Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) broadly, and provides access to service options offered by the County Clerk for a permanent record image repository, microfilm creation, and backup for disaster recovery purposes. As the municipalities image more of their documents, they will be able to fulfill OPRA requests much more quickly. The county-sponsored clerk to clerk connectivity project provided each Municpal Clerk’s office with:

• a high-speed scanner and workstation
• software
• system set-up
• training

The project has been funded in two phases to date:

Phase I, pilot: to ensure the feasibility and success of the project, the county selected 8 municipal governments to participate in a pilot phase. The participants were: Emerson Borough, Fort Lee Borough, Hackensack City, Leonia Borough, New Milford Borough, Old Tappan Borough, Wallington Borough, and Westwood Borough.

Phase II, roll-out to 26 additional municipal governments: Alpine Borough, Carlstadt Borough, Cresskill Borough, Deamrest Borough, Edgewater Borough, Englewood Cliffs Borough, Fair Lawn Borough, Franklin Lakes Borough, Glen Rock Borough, Harrington Park Borough, Hasbrouck Heights Borough, Hillsdale Borough, Maywood Borough, Midland Park Borough, Norwood Borough, Paramsus Borough, Park Ridge Borough, Ramsey Borough, Ridgefield Borough, Ridgewood Village, Saddle Brook Township, Saddle River Borough, South Hackensack Township, Teaneck Township, Tenafly Borough, and Woodcliff Lake Borough.

The county intends to roll the system out to all 70 of its municipal governments.

Each individual municipal system has been certified by the State Records Committee (SRC), and is fully compliant with regulations. Municipal clerks now have the ability to expand the system within their own municipal governments, to include additional offices and records series. Records can be electronically backed up with the county for disaster recovery purposes, and the Coutny Clerk offers microfilm creation servcices for the purpose of long term preservation.

Bergen County received a PARIS Award For Excellence for Shared Services, October 2008 for both their needs assessment and clerk-to-clerk projects.

Visit the Bergen County website: www.co.bergen.nj.us

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