TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) – A new partnership is aiming to save taxpayers money in Lucas and Wood counties, and additionally across northwest Ohio. This new effort involves the clerk's office in both Lucas and Wood counties.
Lucas County Clerk of Courts Bernie Quilter said both counties already have the equipment needed for a regional document imaging project to get off the ground. The goal is to have current operations become more self-sufficient, while saving money for local governments in northwest Ohio.
The imaging lab for the Lucas County Clerk of Courts Office currently employs five people. On any given day, the office takes approximately 10 to 12,000 pages of court documents and other public records, and scans them for storage and viewing online.
Quilter said they are saving ample taxpayer money by not hiring a private company to do the work.
"We would spend, on average, $200,000 a year. We're saving around $150,000 a year," explained Quilter.
The clerk's offices in both counties are entering a joint venture to use their imaging capabilities to help other counties in northwest Ohio save money.
"We're teaming up to be able to go out to offer 20 counties in our area. We want to offer to do all their imaging. They don't have to buy the equipment. We can do it at a cheaper cost for them," said Quilter.
Depending on how many counties sign up and pay for the work to be done, Quilter said more staff could be brought on board at no extra cost to taxpayers.
"The more work we'd have, we'd be able to pay for our workers. We'd probably make this more self-sufficient," said Quilter.
Both counties are tapping into the Ohio Local Government Innovation Fund to conduct a study to work out the details.
"Wood County has a lot of equipment. Couple things they have we don't have. That's why it's called shared services. We can share each other's equipment and help out other counties," said Quilter. "We've been working with Wood County. We've been meeting with other counties. We've been meeting with townships. We hope to have this up and running by June."
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