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Commissioners approve $350,000 DSS records-scanning contract after questioning on cost and bidding
Summary
The board approved a project contract to complete scanning of Department of Social Services records; commissioners pressed staff on cost, rebidding and whether in-house scanning would have been cheaper.
The Pender County Board of Commissioners approved a budgeted purchase to complete an ongoing Department of Social Services (DSS) records-scanning project, with staff describing a multi-phase, two-year effort to digitize decades of case files.
Staff presentation: Meg Moser (interim or department lead in the packet discussion) told commissioners the project began about two years earlier and that previously smaller phases had been completed. The current phase budgeted for the fiscal year totals roughly $350,000, and staff said the project includes not only high-speed scanning but indexing/metadata work to make the records searchable in Laserfiche and to integrate them with case-management workflows.
Commissioner questions: Commissioners questioned whether contracting was more cost-effective than hiring temporary staff and buying or leasing scanning equipment. Moser said past in-house efforts required equipment and labor that were more expensive and slower; the contracted vendor uses high-speed machines and performs metadata indexing. Staff noted the project had been procured as an RFP/project contract (not an annually renewable purchase order) and that the initial estimate used at procurement estimated the number of documents and boxes; actual totals vary depending on condition and volume of records encountered in the field.
Reimbursements: Staff said some of the scanning costs are eligible for state reimbursement depending on program (an example cited was NC FAST-related files). Moser estimated the county would recoup roughly 60% of eligible costs through program reimbursements on certain scanned document categories.
Outcome: The motion to approve the scanning contract (consent item 8.1) carried. Staff said the contractor had completed about 15 pallets of scanning so far and had been transporting processed files offsite for secure destruction in accordance with records schedules.
Why it mattered: Commissioners expressed concern about recurring high-dollar contracts and asked for a cost re-analysis and clearer bid timing going forward. Several members requested a reconciliation of total spending on the scanning project to date and asked staff to examine whether any future phases should be rebid. Staff said they would provide more detail on total expenditures and on reimbursement levels to the board and would re-run cost comparisons if requested.
