County project saving taxpayer money, preserving records

Pinal County is saving taxpayer money and preserving public documents at the same time.

The county’s Planning and Development Department has achieved 100 percent compliance with both legal and policy requirements by having its own Records Retention Policy. Pinal County is now one of the first in Arizona to have its own retention policy on record with the Arizona State Library’s Archives and Records.

A savings of over $20,000 was realized by not having to microfilm all the documents and find space to store all the paperwork. There are plans to have other departments that have public documents on file to have their paperwork scanned and stored at the State Archives also.

All records from 1954 to 1989 have been scanned and added into the county’s on-base computer system. They have also been cross-referenced, reviewed and redacted before having the actual paper files transferred to the State Archives in Phoenix. Last Friday a records technician from the state archives came to Florence to collect the 35 boxes of documents that will be stored in Phoenix.

Planning and Zoning anticipates that the records from 1989 to 1998 will be prepared to transfer to the state archives before the end of the year. The department will retain 10 years of files for reference.

Under Managing for Results, a new business model enacted by the Board of Supervisors to measure performance and make resources available to the public, the Planning and Zoning Department’s goal was to rewrite the Records Retention Policy to make it easier for both employees and the public to gain access to documents.

This new policy also sets a records retention schedule, which makes all case histories a permanent record.

Submitted photo