The Alabama Department of Archives and History, as seen on February 8, 2023. The agency increased the price it will charge to agencies to keep its records. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
State agencies may have to pay more for the Alabama Department of Archives and History to store their documents, which could place an additional burden on the budgets of smaller agencies.
Steve Murray, director of the department, said in an interview Friday that the owner of the warehouse where government documents are stored significantly increased the rent on the facility in a five-year lease signed in August.
Under the lease, Archives will pay the vendor an annual base rent totaling $196,322 to store the documents, along with an estimated $43,233 for the company’s overhead costs. The base rent will increase 4% annually.
In the final year of the previous lease, Archives paid about $156,000 to the vendor to store the physical documents for the state. And, because of the specifics of the agreement, Archives did not have any additional expenses related to overhead and administrative costs.
Murray said the increase was due to “demands in the market and a lack of space that is available.”
“We are evaluating what we are doing with the state records center in the future, and having conversations with agencies about what they have there currently … and what kind of load would be put on them if we were to no longer operate or to scale back the operations for the records center,” he said.
Records produced by the Alabama government are on a schedule with deadlines for how long an agency or entity must retain documents before destroying them. Officials can keep them beyond the legally required time limits, but they cannot destroy them prior to that.
In other words, just about every state agency takes advantage of the records retention service that Archives offers. Some of the larger agencies use the services more extensively, such as the Alabama Department of Revenue.
“Costs associated with agency operations, including utilities, supplies, equipment, and leases, continue to rise. As with all state agencies, the Department of Finance actively monitors these expenses and takes steps to minimize and mitigate the impact of any increases when possible,” a spokesperson said in a statement sent to the Reflector Monday.
The spokesperson added that technology could help defray some of the additional expenses in the future and that the Department is looking at its options.
The Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles stores documents with Archives, as well, “when the subject is no longer under the jurisdiction of the Board or eligible for parole, or after a pardon has been adjudicated,” said Matthew Estes, spokesperson for ABPP in a statement sent Monday.
He added that the Bureau must keep the records stored with Archives for up to 30 years according to the agency’s records retention schedule.
“For quite a few years, Archives has operated as the state records center, where we provide storage and retrieval services for other agencies as a service,” Murray said. “These are records that usually have ongoing administrative value.”
To help offset the increase in price because of the new lease agreement, Archives notified state agencies in November that their monthly rate to store records would increase from 48 cents per box to 62 cents per box.
Some agencies with larger budgets are better positioned to absorb the cost increase. But others, particularly smaller departments, are especially vulnerable to any increases in operating costs.
The ABPP, for example, receives more than $90 million from the state’s General Fund budget.
“While it is a significant cost, it’s nothing that cannot be sufficiently budgeted,” Estes said in his statement. “After such time, the file can be destroyed. Recently, the Docket Unit did a clearing of all archived files that were past the required 30 years which freed up space at Archives and saved the agency over $3,000 in storage fees.”
By contrast, the Alabama Crime Victims Compensation Commission, which provides money for victims of crime and their families, received $1.5 million from the General Fund budget.
According to the commission’s 2023 annual report, the agency accepted $1.1 million of the allocation from the state’s coffers, giving the rest to a nonprofit that the state uses to provide the money.
Much of the rest of the agency’s revenues are received from fines and fees, along with restitution and victim assessment fees. Combined, those sources make up about $2.6 million of the agency’s $5 million total revenues for that year.
The Crime Victims Compensation Commission has been plagued by underfunding as collections from fines and fees have diminished over the past decade, leading to delays in providing claims to victims and their families, as well as reductions in payouts.
According to Executive Director Everette Johnson, the commission pays Archives $15,000 annually to hold the records, which the agency must retain for 99 years. The commission will keep the records on site for three years before transferring them to Archives to store in the warehouse for the remaining time they must be stored.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones, the chair of the commission, said not only are expenses related to physically storing materials increasing, so is the cost to convert documents from paper to electronic format.
“We are seeking a solution that would be affordable and not adversely affect our budget,” he said. “Record retention is important ,but so is obligating funds to best serve the crime victims of Alabama.”
Johnson discussed the new cost during the board’s regularly scheduled quarterly meeting Thursday last week.
“We are looking at alternatives,” he said. “We have about 2,600 boxes, I believe.”
The commission obtained some initial estimates on an alternative option after receiving the notice.
“They came in, did some calculations for how much this would be to scan all of our documents into a digital platform and have cloud access,” Johnson said. “To do that, it would be about $500,000. We are continuing to look at alternatives.”