Cape May County is awarded a $1,227,476.00 PARIS Grant from the State of New Jersey administered by Division of Archives and Records Management. County Clerk Rita Marie Fulginiti (second from right) is pictured here with Records Manager Lizabeth Shay (r

Trenton — At the June 28 meeting of the State Records Committee, Cape May County was awarded a Public Archives and Records Infrastructure Support (PARIS) Grant for 2007-08 in the amount of $1,227,476.00.
The grant is for the management, storage and preservation of public records.
County Clerk Rita Marie Fulginiti, who serves as the county’s PARIS Project Manager, traveled here for the award presentation along with Records Manager Lizabeth Shay and staff members Adrienne Kelly and Melissa Jones.
In her comments before the committee and Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells, Fulginiti spoke about how the grant program, in its third year, has greatly impacted the management and preservation of records in Cape May County through staff development, access to the latest technology, and partnerships with municipal governments for sharing records resources.
“The unique relationship between the PARIS program and the counties and municipalities has created the environment for great improvements in the management and preservation of local government records in New Jersey.” Fulginiti said.
Projects funded in the county through that grant include:

Project 1: Archives and Records Management Program Development - $190,000. This project funds salaries and training for records management staff members.

Project 2: Conservation Treatments, Preservation Microfilming and Scanning of Historically Significant Public Records Collections - $75,167. This project funds professional conservation work on the following historical records collections: Surrogates Books of Records A, B & C (1802-1924); County Clerk’s Slave Birth Record (1810), Marriage Record Books (1795-1878) Partitions of Land (1847-1866), Earmarks (1840-1870) and Naturalization Records (1986-1963).

Project 3: Imaging and e-Recording of Public Records - $283,803. This project funds the continued rollout of the county’s enterprise-wide electronic content management system and the expansion of the land records e-Recording portal.

Project 4: Shared Services - $678,506. This project funds a needs assessment, records inventory and strategic plan in fifteen municipalities; improvements in the connectivity of county departments and three municipalities for facilitating off site data back up; and the development of a records management portal to assist county and municipal users in managing their records inventories.

The funds for the grant were established by the Legislature through certain filing and recording fees collected by the county clerks under P.L. 2003, c. 117.