Like Jefferson, Bloomingdale May Go Paperless

The is considering making a cut that could potentially save the borough thousands of dollars-a papercut, that is.

Councilman Ray Yazdi raised the idea of the borough going paperless at last Tuesday's council meeting. Yazdi, who was sworn in to the council for the first time this month, held up two plastic bins full of paper and said they represented resolutions and agendas from just the past several meetings. Instead of using paper, Yazdi proposed council materials be emailed to each member.

The Township of Jefferson went paperless in 2000 and Yazdi said he would be reaching out to Jefferson's administration to take a closer look at how emailing benefits the borough. According to Jefferson Township Clerk Lori Harvin, Jefferson saves about $2,000 per year in postage alone by emailing.

"For the printing of all the documents for each council meeting, we would estimate about 100 pages per meeting times 22 meetings per year for a paper cost of approximately $11,000," she said. "This does not include extra costs for budget meetings and the savings for the scanning of the council's mail, which is no longer printed."

Harvin said Jefferson not only went paperless to save money, but also to protect the environment and to have increased confidentiality, as documents are no longer being copied and mailed. Harvin also said that employees are able to save time they would have otherwise been using creating the print version of the documents and it has been easier to search for documents electronically.

Jefferson council members use laptops supplied by the township to access the documents and return the computers when they leave the council. Bloomingdale Councilman John D'Amato said his hope for the future in Bloomingdale would also be for council members to have laptop computers to use during their tenure on the council.

"There's no more flopping through all this," he said pointing to a stack of paper. "It's all labeled, it's all organized, you know where it is."

Bloomingdale Borough Clerk Jane McCarthy said going paperless is "new territory" for her, but that she can see how it would save the borough money. She also noted that there are certain documents that must be kept in hard-copy form.

"If this proceeds where we do go totally paperless, I will need to be in contact with the Division of Archives and Records Management to make sure we are complying with the retention laws as to what needs to be on paper as permanent records, etcetera. and also the policy as to keeping records on a server, etcetera," she said.

Councilwoman Jo-Ann Pituch said she does not currently or often have access to a computer, but McCarthy said the borough would be able to make accomodations for those council members who do not. Even by reducing the amount of paper used by going paperless for a majority of council members could result in savings, she said.

McCarthy also said if the borough does go paperless, she would like to see some form of IT support available to employees to assist with the transition.