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Archiver > MEWALDO > 2006-05 > 1147342918


From: "Yo-Jean Benson" <>
Subject: Re: [Waldo County] NO RECORDS ARE BEING DESTROYED
Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 06:21:58 -0400
References: <00d001c674a3$16581380$5e345142@your1jwabwr1k8>


Will commissioners preserve archivist's budget request?

By Jay Davis
Senior Reporter

BELFAST (Nov 5): For years, the dank basement of the Superior Court building
on Church Street has been the repository for inactive records of Waldo
County departments.



Everyone agrees it's a lousy place to keep paper documents. But is it worth
nearly $100,000 in the 2006 budget to get the county's record keeping in
order?



Cheryl Coats, the county's new archivist, cleared the first hurdle recently
when the county commissioners forwarded her request to the budget committee
with no deletions. But the committee is unlikely to quickly pass the bill on
to taxpayers, because of a 30 percent increase in the overall county budget.

Jay Davis

Archivists Cheryl, left, and Jason Coats at work in the Law Library in
the Superior Court building. (Photo by Jay Davis)


Commission Chairman John Hyk said this week that Coats "has done a damn good
job" over the past three years. "She has us moving in the right direction.
We should keep it up at least until she's gone through everything in the
basement to see what needs to be kept permanently."



That work, Coats said last week, is 85 to 90 percent completed. But the
volume of records that must, or should, be saved, is filling her temporary
space in the second-floor Law Library of the Superior Court building.



With the recent addition of hundreds of boxes of inactive jail records,
Coats is asking for a new location to do her work, along with an assistant,
who is her son. The salary line in her request is $40,000 for herself and
$26,000 for her son, Jason, 26.



Coats, who is a paid consultant and not a county employee, uses her three
years' work for the county as one of her qualifications for the dual role of
county archivist and records manager. An archivist working for the federal
government would be paid $60,000, with full benefits, she said.



A state archivist is paid $50,000, with benefits, she said. Staying with the
$10,000 steps down the government hierarchy, Coats pegs her wages at
$40,000, with no benefits. Jason's salary is based on the wage for a Level 1
archivist in Augusta, she said.



The two are partners in a business called DRG Specialty Services LLC, with
the county as its major client: Archival work, research and grant writing
are its major services. As qualifications, Coats says she has a bachelor's
degree in history and "extensive document research and transcription
experience, along with her three years as county archivist. Jason Coats has
a bachelor's degree in anthropology and English, as well as research time in
libraries, archives and county offices.

Coats was hired by the county in 2003 using a grant from the state. One of
her jobs was to inventory records kept by county departments and estimate
the need for permanent storage space.



If she and Jason stay in the Law Library, the total cost to the county would
be $71,380. In her budget request for 2006, however, she also said 1,800
square feet of space is needed to house the records that should be stored
permanently.

Coats contacted several businesses that lease space, and included additional
money in her budget for rent and storage materials, such as shelves. New
space would push her total budget request to $96,480.

No matter where the records are housed, Coats' budget request would be a
huge increase from the $30,000 available this year, or the $12,136 budgeted
in 2004.



State Archivist Jim Henderson said Coats is the only county archivist in
Maine. He supports her initiatives as "an absolutely good thing. If someone
doesn't have a full-time focus on management of records, they're not well
cared for."

Henderson said keeping all county records in one place under professional
supervision is preferable to piecemeal maintenance among a county's
departments. He said a survey conducted several years ago showed one-third
of Maine's towns and counties don't have all their permanent records in a
vault, as the law requires. "There's a lot of noncompliance," he said.



But that doesn't mean all of what Coats is doing is either required or in
keeping with the state archive's standards.

Among the records she is keeping, for example, are 35 boxes of old deeds
placed in the basement by Register of Deeds Deloris Page to free up a
cabinet for current record storage.



The boxes contain approximately 15,000 original deeds that were brought to
the registry for copying and never picked up. Most date back to the 19th
century, Coats said.



A manual prepared by the state archive stipulates the storage life for all
municipal and county records. A section of the manual says any record dating
back to the 19th century must be preserved permanently, which is why Coats
is keeping the boxes of deeds that are available in official form, as
copies, at the registry a floor below her.



Both Henderson and state records manager Nina Osier told VillageSoup,
however, that the deeds are not official records and would likely be
considered abandoned property, which can be destroyed.



Coats said she asked the Archive Advisory Board if the deeds could be
disposed of and was told no. Osier and Henderson said there must have been a
misunderstanding, and that a formal petition to have them destroyed would
likely result in a decision to eliminate them.



Register Page said she "didn't dare" dispose of the deeds when she placed
them in the basement to create more room in her office. She concedes the
conditions in the basement aren't what they should be for permanent storage
but said, "I didn't know what to do with them."



Coats has cleaned the deeds and stored them in archival-quality boxes,
though she has not inventoried the documents individually. Still, they are a
major reason why her space in the Law Library is filling up.



Among the documents Coats has preserved is this early 1800s map of the
northern section of Waldo County.


Coats also told the county commissioners in a memo attached to her budget
request that the jail records - about 276 cubic feet worth - must be kept in
a "secure environment." She told a reporter the records are confidential.



But the same archives manual that allows destruction of 19th century
documents with state approval says that all jail records except inmate
medical charts are accessible to the public. When she was told that, Coats
said all records must be kept in a secure environment so they can't be
defiled or altered by the public.



Coats said she has destroyed about half the material in the basement. The
remaining documents include hand-colored road maps from the early 1800s,
commissioners' records, petitions to close roads, and myriad others that are
now inventoried in a database and stored professionally, which makes it
easier for the public to use them.



"Others look at this as something that will happen and then go away," she
said. "But these records won't disappear. They have to be maintained."



Jason Coats added, "I'm optimistic about the budget committee. It's now and
it's urgent. I think they'll make a good decision for the future of the
county."



Hyk wasn't so sure. "The budget committee may alter (Coats' proposal) or
they could say it's a terrible idea," he said. "But I think the restoration
and preservation of records is very important."



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