Minutes - Goodhue County

GOODHUE COUNTY TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
MINUTES
County Board Room
October 2, 2006
9:00 a.m.
Present: Ted Seifert, Jim Bryant, Randy Johnson, Peg Sorenson, Lisa Hanni, Denise
Landau, Bonnie Stang, Jason Peterson, Kristi Gross, Steve Betcher, Yvonne
Black, Deb Deden, Judy Johnson, Julie Huneke, Dale Marty, and Andrea Benck.
Laser Fische Demo
Denise Landau gave a brief overview of a laser fiche product that Public Health has been using.
Laser fiche acts as a safeguard for public records, can help support public service, can simplify
agendas and allows you to share information more easily. The product also would allow staff to
share information more effectively, protect from unauthorized access or alterations, reduce paper
and paper related costs and would be long term document accessible.
L. Hanni asked if the document was scanned to a special file. D. Landau stated that it creates a
TIF file.
L. Hanni pointed out that there are a lot of confidential documents in her files and questioned
how that would be handled.
S. Betcher felt that this process would take a lot of staff time. Departments would need to make
the decision to scan the entire file and have it electronically, or not scan the entire file and then
keep the hard copy. In that situation, the county would be doing it for nothing. Ideally, a whole
new file should be created to replace the hard copy. The important thing was that all of the
documents in the original file are in the scanned file.
J. Bryant asked if it would be possible to create a password sign in to receive confidential
information.
S. Betcher felt that it would be much more time consuming to separate what was public
information and what was not.
Mike West representing Crabtree joined the group by telephone conference. T. Seifert asked
how the county would deal with files that contained confidential information. M. West stated
that there was a tool that would black out portions of the document. The other thing to keep in
mind is that just because this was public information, the county would not have to display this
laser fiche to the public. The public could come in to the office and obtain a copy of it, just like
they do now. M. West suggested that all of the information that was converted to laser fiche be
kept internal for the time being. If someone from the public comes in and makes a request for a
file, at that time staff could open the file on laser fiche and use the blacking out tool to black out
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the confidential portion of the document. The first step of this entire process should be to get all
of the documents scanned.
L. Hanni asked if each department needed to have a laser fiche scanner. M. West suggested that
the county setup workstations that a number of departments work off of. L. Hanni commented
that she already had a nice scanner and did not want to spend the money on another. M. West
stated that there were a number of scanners that would work with the program. If the scanner is
not compatible with the program, then they could scan the document to pdf. and drop the pdf file
into the laser fiche software.
M. West noted that this program contained five different layers of security. They can also setup
the program to have global access. L. Hanni asked if every computer would need to have the
software. M. West agreed but this could be done through the web. There is also a client
interface and a web interface.
S. Betcher asked about maintenance on the scanners. A lot of the documents in the vault are
dusty and dirty. M. West stated that wiping it down with a dry cloth after using it and a weekly
wipe down with soap and water would be sufficient.
S. Betcher asked how much server space was needed for this. M. West stated that the
information could be stored on any server and 100 gig would be sufficient. Blue Earth and
Anoka County currently use this program, in addition to a large number of cities. R. Johnson
asked if Blue Earth and Anoka had policies on this. M. West agreed that they did.
R. Johnson noted that the city of Red Wing hired a number of interns to scan their documents.
L. Hanni suggested that Public Health continue to use the product and work out any bugs.
A. Benck asked about the information in the vault. A lot of the items there belonged to Court
Administration. She asked the First Judicial District was doing anything with their documents.
Y. Black stated that the state pays a company to come in and take their files and scan them to an
electronic version. They keep the files and all that is left is the electronic version. Eventually,
the files in the vault that belong to Court Administration will not be there.
L. Hanni noted that this process would definitely be a workload issue.
T. Seifert asked about the cost. R. Johnson and P. Sorenson will pull together numbers for cost.
P. Sorenson noted that in order for this program to be effective, it would need to be global.
S. Betcher stated that each department would need to have a reliable person doing the scanning.
Each file would need to be gone through. Also, if the county chose to go through with this, then
the entire file should be electronic rather then both.
L. Hanni noted that she already had a lot of the files electronically and was not sure there was a
need to convert them to laser fiche.
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J. Bryant suggested that each department work with IT to review what materials they have in the
vault and if laser fiche could help their department. He suggested using the second floor of the
Public Health building as a work station for scanning.
L. Hanni stated that this would be talked about again at the Management Team.
Next meeting: November 28 at 8:15 a.m.
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