Kansas Association of Mappers

This questions is more for appraisal staff/offices.

I am so wanting to get rid of the large filing cabinets that consist of paperwork for each parcel in the county, we call them the "map work cards", for each parcel we have the most current map work card along with a history of deeds leading up to where it's at now.

I was going to start scanning all that and arranging some window based filing system using folders however I wondered if there is some sort of software designed toward this type of filing that will make this task easy on me.

I'm not sure if anyone still even keeps those paper files considering the register of deeds office has all their deeds scanned for the most part and we have the notes and deed trails within ORION, however it is nice to have that stack of papers to grab knowing you have the history all right there in your hands. Especially when a landowner comes in questioning changes.

However, the filing cabinets take up a lot of room, if this was digital it would eliminate printing, lost paperwork and dreaded filing!

I realize this question has nothing to do with GIS mapping but mappers that have been around the appraisers office may know what I mean.

So I'd be interested in hearing how other appraisal departments organize and keep track of their ownership records outside of ORION.

 

Thanks

 

Tina Hladky

Wilson County 

 

 

Glad you agree Roy, I'm getting too old to bend down to them lower cabinets...drives me nuts having to file all that stuff back. For anyone that gets the lovely job of filing back would totally understand the struggles.

I keep everything stapled together for each property, my thought was to just start at the beginning and slowly scan all that stuff, as I scanned them I would just remove and store the paper copies somewhere maybe in the basement for awhile in case we had to revert to them for some reason.

As far as the map work card I created a nice "form" in ORION that I use for all my changes, I attach it to the ORION record so since 2011 we have a good history on those and that is where I can keep all my personal notations regarding the record. I print these out and stable it with my other paperwork.  Again the deeds are already documented in ORION so they are easily accessible at the Register of Deeds office if needed, but I'm like you I like to have it all together right there ready to access if that one eager and angry taxpayer steps in questioning things.

But I think this is something maybe we should start considering, everything is going digital these days, why not start working toward a paperless office, it's just more convienient and can be more efficient for not just me but EVERYONE, because like I said it would eliminate lost paperwork, and multiple persons could access the documents at once if needed.

It's scary to step forward into the digital future but at some point we need to trust it and cross that line. We did it with the realestate valuations records, why stop there, you don't see people sitting at typewrites with hard cards and calculators calculating up assessed values do we?, we trusted AS400 for a long time and now ORION, we don't even stop to think of it now. That's why this year I bit my lip and let our mylars go, I can't see that we would ever need to go back there....we kept them up but why spend effort carefully drawing lines out running them thru a blueline machine when I can print out a very nice more up to date map using my GIS that works great. As much as I hate to say this but this is how I see it, we work in this day to get a job done, taxes...values...unfortunately we are not a historical society.

Thanks Roy for your input, I'm hoping we hear more about this. I'd love to see a program specifically designed for record keeping in the appraisers office. 

Have a good one!

 

 

 

I hope Melissa, when she is scanning the supporting documents, is redacting the Social Security numbers on the death certificates and in other documents (probates, divorces, etc.) that have those listed.  You may ask the "legal eagles" about the other information that may fall in the "not to be released" category.

Melissa Crane wrote:

Tina,

We scanned our MWCs and attached them as a pdf to the Orion documents tab for each parcel. We scanned the deeds, death certificates etc. to a separate pdf titled "deeds" and attached those to the parcel documents tab as well. So we have one pdf for all of the historical documents and then as new deeds are filed we attach those one by one as we get them.

Melissa

Thank you Melissa for that idea, I had thought of that also but wondered how much room that would take up on the states server. I'm not sure if we have a limit but that would probably be the best solution then everything is immediately attached to the ORION record. As far as the social security numbers yes I agree we don't let the public access to ORION therefore they would not be seeing those.

Hi  It would help if PVD could help give some guidance and leeway on what they would expect to survive the paper to digital transformation.  I also agree that digital storage and access to the general public issues need to be addressed.

Any ideas?