Peoria County approves upgrade and cloud migration of clerk's Eagle Recorder system

Peoria County approved a resolution to upgrade the county clerk/recorder's Eagle Recorder system and migrate it to a cloud-hosted environment for improved cybersecurity and disaster recovery. Mark, who presented the item, said the county contracted the Eagle Recorder system with Tyler in 2014 and that the system now stores historical land records dating back to 1825 and nonhistorical records back to January 1987.

Mark described the project as a two-step process: first upgrading the application to a current, ADA-compliant version with operational enhancements, then migrating the upgraded system to the cloud. He cautioned the board that data ownership remains with the county, but the migration is not seamless because of integrations with other systems such as GIS and payment systems. "We have historical land records, back to 1825," Mark said, and added that moving data to another vendor is "doable" but will take time because of integrations.

Board members asked whether physical books remain; Mark said earlier records were scanned in a prior process and are now digital. Members also asked about funding and chargebacks; staff responded that many software and maintenance costs are managed in IT or through the recorder automation fund, with finance handling chargebacks. The board voted to approve the migration motion; the meeting transcript indicates the motion passed but roll-call vote details were not transcribed.

The county plans the multi-month project to continue into the next year and will monitor integrations with other county systems during the migration.