Lackawanna Co. Record of Deeds looking to upgrade online records access
November 30, 2010 Open records | Lackawanna Co.
The Lackawanna County recorder of deeds office wants to make all of its documents available on the Web at no charge to the public.
The county is seeking proposals for a new integrated recorder of deeds record-management system that would let users locate and download - for free - deeds, mortgages and related documents dating back to 1878.
"We need to make government, and in particular the records in this office, more accessible to people," Recorder of Deeds Evie Rafalko McNulty said Monday. "The main thing is making it available to the public for free. They are their records."
With the county's current Landex system, supplied by Optical Storage Solutions Inc., the public can search and access records since 1976 at no charge. However, there is a 10-cents-per-minute fee, with 5 cents going to Landex and 5 cents to the county, to do an advanced search for older records.
Mrs. Rafalko McNulty said she is uncomfortable charging a fee when there are other software systems available that can provide free access.
"Government is not in the business to make money; we're in business to provide a service. ... With our current vendor, I felt we were just generating revenue for them," she said.
Companies have until Dec. 10 to respond to the county's request for qualifications.
As part of the contract, the selected vendor will have to digitize and computerize 171 handwritten index books for the pre-1976 records. They are all that remain of more than 7,000 books of paper records the county is converting to electronic format.
Mrs. Rafalko McNulty said the integrated system will provide a smoother interface with other county agencies, such as the assessor's office, the tax claim bureau and the planning department. Instead of multiple offices keyboarding the same information, it will only have to be entered once.
She also anticipates the new software will allow the county to give municipalities and school districts more information about transactions in their jurisdictions, including flagging potential anomalies. For instance, if a property with a calculated fair market value of $200,000 is sold for $50,000, it could indicate something amiss.
"Nine times out of 10, they'll know it's a legitimate property and somebody did it to avoid the (real estate) transfer tax," Mrs. Rafalko McNulty said. "By avoiding the transfer tax, they've taken money out of their school district budget and they've taken money out of their municipal budget."
The county is seeking proposals for a new integrated recorder of deeds record-management system that would let users locate and download - for free - deeds, mortgages and related documents dating back to 1878.
"We need to make government, and in particular the records in this office, more accessible to people," Recorder of Deeds Evie Rafalko McNulty said Monday. "The main thing is making it available to the public for free. They are their records."
With the county's current Landex system, supplied by Optical Storage Solutions Inc., the public can search and access records since 1976 at no charge. However, there is a 10-cents-per-minute fee, with 5 cents going to Landex and 5 cents to the county, to do an advanced search for older records.
Mrs. Rafalko McNulty said she is uncomfortable charging a fee when there are other software systems available that can provide free access.
"Government is not in the business to make money; we're in business to provide a service. ... With our current vendor, I felt we were just generating revenue for them," she said.
Companies have until Dec. 10 to respond to the county's request for qualifications.
As part of the contract, the selected vendor will have to digitize and computerize 171 handwritten index books for the pre-1976 records. They are all that remain of more than 7,000 books of paper records the county is converting to electronic format.
Mrs. Rafalko McNulty said the integrated system will provide a smoother interface with other county agencies, such as the assessor's office, the tax claim bureau and the planning department. Instead of multiple offices keyboarding the same information, it will only have to be entered once.
She also anticipates the new software will allow the county to give municipalities and school districts more information about transactions in their jurisdictions, including flagging potential anomalies. For instance, if a property with a calculated fair market value of $200,000 is sold for $50,000, it could indicate something amiss.
"Nine times out of 10, they'll know it's a legitimate property and somebody did it to avoid the (real estate) transfer tax," Mrs. Rafalko McNulty said. "By avoiding the transfer tax, they've taken money out of their school district budget and they've taken money out of their municipal budget."
