CCP 07-10-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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. . ~ ~~HILLS MEMORANDUM DATE: July 5,2006 AGENDA ITEM: 7.E TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council Members Michelle A. Wolfe, City Administrator FROM: Schawn Johnson, Assistant City Administrator Murtuza Siddiqui, Chief Financial Officer w"oS SUBJECT: Document Imaging Update Backl!.round: The City has been exploring document imaging options for a number of years. Up until recently, the option explored was to purchase high speed imaging equipment and software and to perform all aetivities in-house by hiring temporary hclp. This methodology would involve staff researching the process of imaging, learning how best to organize the material in the system, training the temporary person, and supervising the person to ensure quality is being maintained. We eonservatively estimate this approach to take about 6 months by hiring one temporary person and assigning an "expert" staff person to oversee the entire process. We estimate hiring a temporary person at a cost of $15,000 to $20,000. The supervision and oversight function by a City employee would take that individual away from their routine responsibilities. In addition to these issues, the maintenance and obsolescence of the equipment also possess a challenge. However, in the past couple of years, a number of businesses have emerged that will take all the historical doeuments off site, organize, image, and convert the images on a CD ROM to copy on to our network. The organization we are proposing to hire will not only assist us with the document imaging of historical documents, but will also train City staff so that future imaging can be done in-house on a routine basis. The attached table shows the comparison between performing the scanning process in-house versus outsourcing for scanning for historical documents. It should be noted that outsourcing does not mean that everything will be done extcmally. Whether we have an outside vendor scan documents for us or we do it in-house would still require the City to have software, training, on-going support. Information cannot be retrieved without the software. Cities Digital provides both services. They scan and organize the documents and also provide the software and the associated training. This approach will minimize the purchase of equipment. . What are the benefits of doeument imaging? Document imaging has numerous advantages: