State archives grant will help Chelan scan and store city records

CHELAN – As they tend to do over the years, the paper records were piling up in the city’s storage space, but an internal scanning project combined with a recent state grant is helping the clerk’s office get a handle on the matter.

City Clerk Peri Gallucci reported to the June 11 bi-monthly meeting of the city council that the city was among three applicants to receive a maximum $50,000 records grant to help cover scanning costs of the backlog. Gallucci said that of 122 applications for the grants, only 25 were funded. Of those, only three exceeded $40,000, and Chelan received one of them. The grant was awarded by the State of Washington Office of the Secretary of State Archives and Records Management Division.

“The downside of it is our actual scanning needs are $102,000,” said Gallucci, “We are looking at doing some scanning in-house, but the grant will cover a big chunk of it, about 35 boxes.”

Mayor Erin McCardle asked Gallucci to update the council about the quantity of records her office has already addressed.

“When we first started, the whole entire (room) was full of boxes and drawings and stuff all mixed up,” said Gallucci. “We are completely finished with community development. Besides the scanning, we are done with finance, we are done with parks, and we will hit public works in September.”

Gallucci said her office has scanned thousands of documents internally and disposed of at least 300 boxes of those no longer needed.

A downstairs central repository will house those records that must be retained until their retention period is met.

“All of the city’s records will be coming here until their disposition,” Gallucci said.

Mike Maltais: 360-333-8483 or michael@ward.media