Monroe County, PA has the most up-to-date technology infrastructure improvements and advanced digital solutions to address their specific needs. How do they do it? Monroe County has been outsourcing their IT services with Avenu since 1998. Their partnership has afforded Monroe County the ability to maximize everyday tasks, field daily citizen requests, manage local elections and secure their records for the future.
Here’s how Monroe County and Avenu have succeeded in building a digital government that can withstand crises and deliver effective services to constituents.
Currently our ITMS team is working with Monroe on a major Courthouse expansion project. This project involves networking eight brand new Courtrooms with state-of-the-art equipment, upgrading the existing network infrastructure, and moving departments while the renovation is in progress. The team is excited to work on a project of this magnitude!
Being a trusted and valued partner has led to a great opportunity for Avenu’s Digital Processing team. This is called “cross-selling,” which is when we work with a client in one business unit and are able to expand services to another business unit. Here’s a little more about the digitizing work we are currently doing for the County.
Like all local governments, Monroe County is required to keep detailed records of everything from land grants and property deeds to court filings and tax data. Simple enough at first but Monroe County was established in 1836 and as time moved forward their population and number of files grew. Monroe County was overflowing with over 14 million physical records which are overflowing in thousands of boxes, in multiple physical storage locations across six different buildings. Some of these paper artifacts are 100 years old. Over time, paper experiences deterioration that occurs from usage, sunlight, oxidation, mold and storage. Even ink was not engineered to last 100 years. Retrieving documents was an additional challenge and required going to an off-site location, looking down long rows of files stored on shelves, and sifting through boxes to locate the desired file.
Monroe County’s challenge was to efficiently preserve records for long-term use, being able to easily access records while reducing storage requirements, provide a disaster recovery plan while staying on budget.
Avenu won the Request for Proposal (RFP) that was issued and together, Monroe County and Avenu started the Paperless Initiative in April 2020. Avenu’s Digital Processing Team immediately got to work standing side by side with County officials and employees to locate, meticulously scan and upload documents and files. Since June, Avenu has scanned, inventoried, and provided “Look-ups” for 75,000 case files and 1,700,000 pages for cases files from 1997 to 2004. These digitized files are not only easier to access; they are also a higher quality image than the original paper files. This project is an ongoing and multiyear effort. Please check back to see how the Paperless Initiative is progressing as Monroe County’s history is archived for generations to come.
You can learn more details about Avenu’s ITMS or DPS work at Monroe in our recent case studies:
