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Motion expressing the Sense of Council of Allegheny County, supporting House Bill 528 (HB 528) which establishes a County Records Improvement Fund for the Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds Office that will support the development and improvement of office records management activities and systems.
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WHEREAS, House Bill 528 (HB 528) provides that an additional fee of $5 be added to the existing recording fees charged by the Recorder of Deeds, from which $3 would be retained by the office and $2 would be place in a County Records Improvement Fund; and
WHEREAS, the $3 fee would be placed in a special account allocated to the development and improvement of office records management activities and systems within the Recorder of Deeds Office; such funds could not be used as a substitute for any allocation of general revenues for the office; and
WHEREAS, recording fees in Allegheny County average $40 and were last increased by $10 in November of 2002 pursuant to an order by the Supreme Court for upgrades to the Judicial Computer System and are in line with other similarly situated counties; and further, the additional $5 fee would be paid by the very users who would benefit most from its implementation; and
WHEREAS, similar legislation has already been enacted within the offices of Clerk of Courts, Prothonotary, Register of Wills, and Sheriff in Allegheny County providing almost $2.8 million in 2004 special accounts for the upgrade of computer systems within those offices; and the Recorder of Deeds in counties of the second A, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth classes received the ability to create such a fund in 2002; and
WHEREAS, the Recorder of Deeds has instituted a state of the art recording system that includes indexes back to 1986 and images of documents back to 2001, that are available free on the Internet, benefiting the citizens of Allegheny County, commercial users, and other government agencies; an additional fee paid for by the users would allow future upgrades of the system and preservation of existing records and documents that are deteriorating;
NOW THEREFORE, IT IS MOVED, AND IT IS THE SENSE OF THE COUNCIL OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY, that this Body supports House Bill 528 (HB 528) which establishes a County Records Improvement Fund for the Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds Office that will support the development and improvement of office records management activities and systems.
BE IT FURTHER MOVED that this Sense of Council Motion be transmitted to the Governor, the Allegheny County Delegation in the Pennsylvania Senate and House of Representatives, and to the members of the House Urban Affairs Committee.