Josh LaRussa is the Register of Deeds Clerk for Chester County, South Carolina. He runs a lean operation and is the only county employee who registers deeds, although he has cross-trained others to cover for him in case he is unavailable. About two years ago, Avenu’s Clearview GRIDS software system started to make Josh’s job easier. GRIDS is a cloud-based record-indexing solution that delivers functionality and peace of mind to those responsible for maintaining all current and historic land records for a county.
Learn what life was like for the Chester County Clerk’s Office before Clearview GRIDS, and how this solution transformed their office.
Following the transformation, Josh LaRussa stated, “Our citizens are happy with the convenience of being able to search online which has saved our staff considerable time and effort.”
Chester County, SC Clerk’s Office
Nestled in the Poconos, 90 miles from New York City, the historic county has seen significant growth over the last couple decades. Pennsylvania also has one of the longest record retention requirements for coroner’s offices. Storing, preserving, and accessing these documents has become a logistical challenge. The county needed to rent more space to accommodate the additional 1,700 records a year, these documents were subject to decay, and it could take weeks to access them. When Tomas Yanac, Jr. was elected as the county coroner in 2017, he saw this problem and new they needed to digitize county records.
In the Spring of 2021, the coroner’s office found out that Avenu’s Digital Processing Services team was already scanning documents for other departments in the county. They jumped at the opportunity to utilize the DPS services, and the process began.
Avenu digitized roughly 481,000 pages and 31,650 case files. This included historical documents dating back to 1837 that had to be handled with care. All these documents were preserved so that they could be searched and accessed digitally. Now when members of the public need files, they can accessed in seconds instead of weeks without any risk of damage to the documents.
Learn the steps taken to digitize almost a half million pages, and how this transformed how the coroner’s office serves the public.
Monroe County, PA Coroner’s Office
“Book One Club” acknowledges jurisdictions digitizing back to “book one,” beginning with the one of our country’s first counties, Plymouth
CENTREVILLE, VA. (PRWEB) –
The Plymouth County Registry of Deeds Office is being honored and recognized as a member of Avenu Insights & Analytics’ “Book One Club.” John R. Buckley, Jr., Register of Deeds for Plymouth County executed a plan to digitize 400 years of land records — all the way back to Book One — to preserve the county’s history for future generations. The Book One Club was launched by Avenu to honor local governments who have gone to great lengths to digitize back to their very first record, also known as “book one.” Avenu will be present at Plymouth’s Registry of Deeds Office on February 9, 2022, at 10:00 a.m. to present the award.
“Digitizing back to sovereignty is a tremendous accomplishment, especially when you are one of the oldest and most historic jurisdictions in our country,” shared Avenu CEO, Paul Colangelo. “John R. Buckley, Jr., Register of Deeds for Plymouth County took great strides in preserving history by going back to Plymouth County’s first land record in 1685, and also going back to Plymouth Colony’s first land record dating back to 1620. He also was one of the first Register of Deeds offices to digitize images that include transcriptions. Together we worked to link the document images with their index information so that the public can easily search and retrieve a piece of history.”
Government records ensure accountability, provide proof of agreements, and serve as a historic account of events. Paper, ink, microfiche, and microfilm are not designed to last forever. As our country progresses in age, there are numerous challenges to records management, including deterioration from usage, sunlight, oxidation, mold, and improper storage. Insufficient storage and the cost of archiving paper records is another growing issue for many offices. Certainly during the recent Covid-19 years it made it easier for both the real estate professionals and the public to access records. Digitizing documents is the future for record management.
“We are honored to be awarded with Avenu’s Book One Club membership. Avenu’s team of dedicated professionals understood the importance of our mission and knew how to properly handle and preserve our records,” stated Buckley. “We were able to preserve our records while also making them available online to the public so everyone can easily access them for generations to come.”
About Plymouth County Registry of Deeds
The Plymouth County Registry of Deeds is an agency of the County of Plymouth and the guardian of historical and modern land records from the Pilgrims to the present. Established in 1685, Plymouth County is among the oldest counties in the United States. The Registry of Deeds has over 17 million images available to the public, which includes all recorded documents, plans, land court certificates, and many special collections. There is no charge to search and view Plymouth’s records.
About Avenu Insights & Analytics
Over 3,000 state and local governments have partnered with Avenu to drive positive results for their communities through software administration and compliance auditing solutions. Avenu’s comprehensive software solutions digitally transform government by modernizing processes, providing online access to records, and reducing costs. State and local governments also work closely with Avenu to increase revenue without raising taxes, streamline internal operations, and improve services by enhancing connectivity for constituents. Avenu is a portfolio company of Mill Point Capital. To learn more, visit www.avenuinsights.com.
As technology advances, there comes the strenuous task of updating old documents into the new systems. Without these updates, older documents might become lost in the transition.
John Buckley, Plymouth County Register of Deeds, walks us through the digital transformation of records:
This discussion was taken from our show Local Government Insights. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, check us out on Apple, and all your other favorite podcast platforms. Take a moment listen on your favorite platform. We would appreciate your reviews and feedback as we continue to release upcoming episodes.
How Avenu Built IT Solutions for the Digital Age
The digital transformation of government is an imperative today. Digital citizens increasingly demand the convenience and efficiency of digital services from their local governments. Paper processing, manual data entry and in-person bureaucracies hamper government’s ability to deliver best-in-class solutions that can keep up with the pace of modern life.
But digitizing and modernizing isn’t always easy. There’s a lot for local governments to process. To fully digitize their operations, governments need effective and secure IT infrastructure, as well as access to the expertise, resources and tools of dedicated IT specialists.
Since the 1990s, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, has sought to stay on top of the latest trends in digital government. But Monroe County didn’t want to be just one step ahead; they wanted to build a digital government that would last for the long term. To do so, they needed help. And Avenu was there to help them.
Avenu’s decades-long partnership with Monroe County has effected a total digital transformation of the county’s government.
Learn the steps taken to implement this transformation and enable Monroe County to be a leader into the future.
Monroe County, Pennsylvania
By Paul Colangelo, Avenu CEO
If local governments have learned anything from 2020, it’s the importance of digital tools, platforms and services. Amid the unprecedented economic and social disruption incurred by the Covid-19 pandemic, digital governments proved crisis-resistant and efficient enough to thrive.
However, if the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of government, that transformation is still far from over. In fact, it’s bound to pick up pace as both constituents and government employees become adjusted to ever-increasing digitalization. As we enter Covid-19’s second year and prepare for the future, local governments must continue their efforts at digital transformation.
That means local governments need to stay on top of the latest developments in IT, cybersecurity and digitalization. With that in mind, I want to highlight some of the biggest digital trends to watch for in 2021 and beyond.
To learn the top digital trends of 2021, read the full article on Forbes.
In a natural disaster, state and local governments are more important than ever for their constituents. But to prepare for the kind of crisis a natural disaster can bring, governments need a contingency plan.
The thought of planning for a natural disaster may seem out of place during a pandemic. But as Avenu’s Ann Kirkbride explains in her latest op-ed, it’s never the wrong time for governments to start preparing for a future crisis. A natural disaster, like a hurricane or a wildfire, won’t wait for the pandemic to subside. Neither should governments.
The key risk that governments have to account for in their contingency plans is workplace and workflow disruption. That’s why an effective digital transformation needs to be a part of every contingency plan. A fire could damage vital government records, and a hurricane could cut power to a government office. But digital records and a remote work set-up are resilient to these disruptions.
Read on here to learn more.