Sometimes it is all about the money. What clerk or administrator doesn’t want to upgrade the way the municipality’s records are managed? It’s not always easy to make it happen. There are, however, programs in some states and on a national basis that provide grants to finance such improvements.

In New York, the State Archives offers grants and awards to support and promote sound records management practices. Between 500 and 700 local governments apply each year, and the competition is tough. The deadline for the next Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund (LGRMIF) grant cycle is December 1, 2004. Information about the program is available online at www.archives.nysed.gov/a/grantsawards.shtml, and grant application information sessions are held in advance of the deadline.

More and more state governments are instituting similar grant programs, often funded by a portion of the document filing fees collected by county clerks. New Jersey is launching its PARIS grant program in 2005, and you don’t have to speak French to apply! The Public Archives and Records Infrastructure Support (PARIS) grant program will initially have a narrow focus looking specifically to fund state-coordinated county needs assessment and strategic planning services and grants-in-aid for imaging systems and services; archival records preservation services; and municipal needs assessment. Application forms should be available in January from the Division of Archives and Records Management of the Department of State, which is overseeing the grants program.

The sixteen-month-long planning process that resulted in the PARIS program was principally funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). In states where there is no state-sponsored program for grants, the NHPRC may be the only game in town. The Commission funds projects that deal with the following kinds of material: records of state, county, municipal, tribal, or other non-Federal units of government; manuscripts, personal papers, or organizational and business archives; collections of photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings, electronic records, and/or such visual materials as unpublished architectural, cartographic, and engineering drawings. One example: A grant of $28,460 to the City of Milwaukee, WI, to establish retention and preservation criteria for tape recordings of city government activities.

In Connecticut, the State Library’s Historic Documents Preservation Program purports to be noncompetitive and give every eligible town that applies within the established guidelines an award. As applications increase and with limited funds available, it is expected that this program will become increasingly competitive.

In Pennsylvania, the History and Museum Commission uses an annual appropriation from the General Assembly. Grants are offered up to $15,000 for such projects as county records improvement or preservation of local government records.

The moral of this story: If you don’t ask, you can’t receive. The time a municipality puts into applying for grants on both the state and national levels could reap big rewards and help to bring its records management practices into the 21st century.

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