Clerk’s office seeks new records system and back‑scanning funds to reduce backlog

Fauquier County IT and the clerk of court brought a proposal to replace the county’s aging records management system, citing reliability, ransomware history and poor vendor support as drivers for modernization.

John Lum, the county’s enterprise services architect, said the current vendor (COTS Systems) has deteriorated in responsiveness since being acquired and suffered a major ransomware incident in 2023 that affected many municipal clerk offices. "Support and service has declined drastically to such an extent that support and service problems that they're having don't get resolved in a timely manner," Lum said. IT and clerk staff compiled a core requirements list — online payments, OCR on ingestion, full audit trails and improved downstream data feeds — and solicited multiple vendors.

The proposed replacement would average about $88,000 per year over five years (including hosting and redundancy), with a one-time procurement in the neighborhood of $90,000 and recurring costs in the $40k–$48k range; staff noted the county currently pays about $48,000 annually for the incumbent system. Staff also recommended a one-time appropriation to support back‑scanning historical records to address the backlog; specific back‑scan costs would be scoped and priced in a follow-up procurement.

Clerk staff stressed that much of the office’s workload is time‑consuming quality control — deeds, rejected submissions and other documents that require manual attention — and that modernization plus targeted staffing will reduce the backlog over time. The board asked for details on scope and back-scan cost and indicated interest in a phased approach.