Prosecutor's office to sign 10-year records-storage contract after commissioners reject 20-year option

The Genesee County Government Operations Committee approved a 10-year contract with Leonard Brothers on a motion amended from an original 10- or 20-year option offered in committee debate.

Chief Assistant Prosecutor (name not specified in transcript) described the county's prior difficulties with a different vendor and said the county has already been working with Leonard Brothers to scan active case files into the CARPEL electronic records system. He told commissioners the county still must retain older inactive case files "we are required to keep and maintain by state law" and that Leonard Brothers can both scan individual requested files on demand and provide long-term, climate-controlled storage for retained hard files.

Commissioners discussed whether to sign a 10-year or 20-year contract. The prosecutor's office explained that the price schedule is broken into five-year increments, and that the first 10 years would cost the same whether the board chose a 10- or 20-year term; the advantage of 20 years would be price certainty further into the future. The prosecutor told commissioners, "If you lock into the 20 years now, you know what you're getting for the future." Commissioner Lloyd said he would support a 10-year contract and moved an amendment to make that explicit; the amendment was moved and supported and the motion as amended carried.

Purchasing staff said the county put the work out to bid in 2022 for digitizing files and that pricing for storage had been included in the original RFP. Staff also said full, immediate digitization of all historical files had been estimated at roughly $1.5 million, so the county elected a scan-as-needed approach: Leonard Brothers scans files on request and retains older records in storage. Staff noted that current storage costs are about $700–$800 per month and could fall to $300–$500 per month as retained holdings decline under statutory retention schedules.

Commissioners directed staff to update the contract language to reflect the 10-year term; the committee approved forwarding the amended agreement to the full board. Committee members requested a follow-up report on vendor coverage for other departments and said they expect to reduce reliance on the former vendor as records are transferred and disposition schedules are executed.

The committee's action authorizes a long-term storage contract and continued use of on-demand scanning to support prosecutors' access to archived records; routine retention and destruction under state law will continue to govern which physical records remain in storage.