Records fee could pay off

Bedford County will study whether to begin charging a $5 "record creation fee" at some county offices, in order to begin building up funds to digitize older county records.

Once those older records have been digitized, the county hopes they will provide a revenue stream as genealogists and other researchers pay to access them online.

Bedford County planning and zoning director Chris White, who also works with the county's information technology systems, reported Tuesday night to the county's Financial Management Committee that the state allows the county to charge up to $5 per document filed at various county offices as a record creation fee. White's proposal is that the county enact the fee and begin saving the proceeds for six months. By that time, according to White's report, the county would have accumulated enough in revenue to begin digitizing old county records.

White said the clerk and master's office alone generates more than 2,000 new files each year. At $5 per file, that office could generate more than $10,000 in revenue from the record creation fee. White said other court offices and the register of deeds' office would generate even more than that, and projected the county could easily see $50,000 per year in income from the fee. That income would be used to cover equipment and other costs of digitizing older records.

Records storage has become an increasing problem for county departments. The sheriff's department and jail have records stored in the county's old rock jail facility and are reported to be in severe need of additional space. White said digitizing older records when allowed by state law could help preserve them from further damage and reduce the need for additional space. He said that specialized equipment such as scanners for large maps would be leased, not purchased, and that college students could be recruited to help with the work.

White said Tennessee Code Annotated 10-7-408 allows for the record creation fee, while T.C.A. 10-7-123 allows the county to charge a reasonable fee for online access to records.

White said he had visited Maury County, which has already digitized many records. White said employees at Maury County's school finance department have scanners at their desk. The information from a paper document can be typed into a computer, but the actual document is also scanned in and linked to the keyed-in information.

The finance committee directed White to talk to other county departments about the proposal. The proposal will also be referred to the rules and legislative committee and the courthouse and county property committee when they meet next month.