Michigan Office Goes Paperless

Date: February 10, 2010

Allegan, MI -- In a radical conversion to a paperless office that began back in 2005, County Information Services in Allegan, Michigan made the decision to begin detaching themselves from printers. Large volumes of paper were being generated and it is reported that the county will run out of storage space in the next three to five years. When this process started, they began converting all of their documents to electronic format like PDFs. According to Holland Sentinel, Allegan County was spending roughly $100,000 a year on paper and ink.

It is not just the paper and ink they are saving on either, it is also staff time. They are able to save 10% in work time by not making all the copies that were previously required. In 2005, the office scanned 874,000 pages and last year they scanned 1.2 million sheets. Through the first half of this year alone, they have scanned 722,000. After the paper copies are made digital, they are destroyed.

Now with our country’s budget crisis, the move may prove to have been extra insightful as Allegan County is in a $1 million dollar budget shortfall this year. They were also able to clear out two vaults of paper in the probate court building, which resulted in being able to convert that space to an office. Sheriff’s department employees now input accident reports on a mobile computing device, eliminating any issues related to handwriting or legibility, and dual entry of the same data. To improve their outreach efforts, Allegan County is thinking about using Facebook and Twitter to get information out to residents, limiting the amount of paper that has traditionally been used.

BY ADAM HAIGH, Editor