Finance Committee - 07/15/2020 Page 7
It really is the history of the property from beginning until now where the property record card is just that
snapshot, right, that’s showing you what is with the property now other than the portion of the card that will
have the history of the assessment. And even that is generally 7 to 8 years, it is not the entire list of the
assessment on the property record card. So we try to think of the card as a snapshot in time and the file as the
history.
Alderwoman Lu
| see and just a follow up please? And will each file be limited to because | think last night you talked about
closing, the closed files. After the property changes hands, does it lose the history or not?
Director Kleiner
Great question; so we were talking about closed files last year and that’s more on the AP5 on the CAMA
system. So the property file stays the same; the map and lot and parcel that’s the property, where you could
have a property that closes and either that property has been sold and that goes on to a different owner, but it
is still the same property file, the same property record on the AP5 system, you will just see on the card that it
has been sold and a different owner. So closed accounts really aren’t closed property record files, those don’t
get closed per se.
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you. And would you say the need for this kind of electronic recording has really been needed, is it
something that recent multiple requests have generated the need or is it just something that we needed to
move into to be more a more efficient office and operation? Do you want me to re-state that, | feel as though |
was a little ...
Director Kleiner
So if | may, | think | know what you are trying to say and certainly there have been a lot of requests for property
record files. When you look at the number of requests that have come and | do, it’s not that many residents
are requesting the whole history of their property, although if you are buying a property, | would encourage you
to do that. So research your property and you can certainly come in and look at it. That’s not something that |
knew until | became involved with Assessing. But there’s also the business aspect of this. And | don’t want to
lose sight of that. So there’s a number of reasons why this is just good business. You have documents in
there that are literally falling apart in your hand, because of the age of the document. This is preservation of
those documents. You don’t get that when you have a scanning technique. The other thing is the access to
document.
So when you walk in our vault and we certainly would be glad to have you down and take a look. It’s a lot of
pulling files and searching through files. When you are dealing with a Document Management System, it has
incredible search techniques and you can have instant access to these files and not only to the file but to the
document within the file in a matter of seconds. So there’s big efficiency in a system like this.
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you.
Mayor Donchess
Anyone else have any questions or comments? | don’t see anyone. Madam Clerk, would you please call the
roll?
