SD
Taxpayers Benefit From Secretary of State's
Hi-Tech Services
A Conversation With Tom Leckey
South Dakota Deputy Secretary of State
"We
feel we have the best filing system
in the United States."
Tom Leckey
When
a South Dakota citizen comes in contact with state
government
more often than not it is through the Office of the
Secretary of State. As the State’s official
custodian of public documents, Secretary Joyce Hazeltine
has completely reorganized and computerized the department,
positioning it on the cutting edge of technology
to manage the high demands of the State’s record
keeping responsibilities. According to Deputy Secretary
Tom Leckey. “We feel we have the best filing
system in the United States.”
Secretary
Hazeltine, Deputy Secretary Leckey
with ADS's Ron Quinn
The
Secretary of State’s office has brought
together many technologies to improve productivity
and efficiency. Their nationally recognized
innovations include electronic filing over the Internet,
bar coding utilization, as well as paper, microfilm
and microfiche scanning technologies and document
management systems.
Records show that in 1986 the Office of Secretary
of State had 18.3 full time equivalent (FTEs) employees. Today,
with the development of document in-coding and management
systems the department has 14 FTEs and is handling
twice as many corporations as 16 years ago, a savings
of over $120,000 annually.
Under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), financing
records are filed to make a public record of secured
transactions between a debtor and a secured party.
The financing records are extremely important in
establishing priority among creditors in judicial
proceedings, the UCC provides measures to protect
the debtor and the secured party by filing a financing
record in the proper jurisdiction under uniform provisions.
Tom
Leckey
Deputy Secretary of State
Out
of the UCC division the Office of the Secretary of
State has developed an Internet program called
the Dakota Fast File for filing liens. Says
Leckey, “Previously, when you applied for a
loan the bank had to write us to do a search and
request copies for all the liens. We would
research the microfilm and send copies. The
process would take 6 or 7 days. With Dakota
Fast File banks can fill out the UCC over the Internet
and verify that it is there, instantly. They
don’t have to wait for a piece of paper to
let them know that it is filed.”
Also, amongst their many constitutional duties, the
Secretary of State is South Dakota’s administrator
of corporations. Through Dakota Fast File information
is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week via
the Internet. Says Leckey, “As we were
developing this system we discovered that banks were
lending money to corporations that didn’t legally
exist because they hadn’t filed their annual
reports with us. Now they can pull up the documents
off the Internet and know if these organizations
are in good standing and exist.”
About 75% of the filings are now done over the Internet. It
is estimated banks save 30-40% in time using Dakota
Fast File. Leckey stated that the State saves
as well, “$12,000 a year in postage cost, alone.”
With 25% of the documents still filed on paper, the
Secretary of State utilizes a Canon 5020 Desktop Scanner integrated with the ScanFile
Document Management System to scan, index, store and retrieve documents
originated on hard copy. Says Leckey, “With
the ScanFile system it’s fast and easy to do
searches. Time is a big deal for us, and the copies
that come off the 5020 are just beautiful. We are
proud to send them out.”
By
law document archiving must be done on microfilm. Hundreds
of thousands have been archived over the years. “Microfilm
is still the best medium for archiving, but for fast,
easy searching and retrieving documents need to be
in digital format,” says Leckey. The
Secretary of State’s office is scanning those
images from the microfilm with Canon’s MS-400
and MS-800 Desktop Microfilm Scanner Systems. The
Secretary of State’s office has imaged between
300,000 and 400,000 images with another 600,000 to
do. Canon’s desktop scanner systems are affordable,
state-of-the-art solutions that integrates microfilm
images with today’s advanced document-management
systems, like ScanFile. Designed as an upgradable,
modular system it has simple controls and is network-ready. The
MS-400 & 800 provides compatibility with
all microfilm formats allowing simple digital conversion
of film archives into the ScanFile system. “With
the Canon scanners we are imaging about
2,000 documents a day. The copies are always
perfect and it’s so much faster to pull it
out of the Scanfile system,” states Leckey.”
Leckey concluded, “We’re great believers
in treating our constituency as customers by being
as helpful as we can. Service is important
to us and it’s important to the state. If
we have a little software glitch we want an answer
now, not two hours from now, because if we don’t
get it fixed we have people sitting around not being
able to get work done. Active Data Systems
has provided us with great service. Often times
they perceive what we will need before we ask for
it. They see things that we don’t see.
That’s a big reason why we do business
with them.”
Mark
McClung
President, ADS
Active
Data Systems (ADS) has played a big part in providing
scanning hardware and document management
systems that integrates with other systems for the
South Dakota’s chief records office. “It’s
rewarding for us to both have a good customer with
the State of South Dakota and know that taxpayers
are benefiting from our products and services,” says
Mark McClung, President of Active Data Systems.
SIOUX FALLS OFFICE: 2504 W. 46th St. - Sioux Falls, SD 57105 - 605-335-5906
RAPID CITY OFFICE: 3213 W. Main, #321, Rapid City, SD 57702 -
605-343-5611
Sales and Support: info@activedatasystems.com
By
law document archiving must be done on microfilm. Hundreds
of thousands have been archived over the years. “Microfilm
is still the best medium for archiving, but for fast,
easy searching and retrieving documents need to be
in digital format,” says Leckey. The
Secretary of State’s office is scanning those
images from the microfilm with 
Canon’s desktop scanner systems are affordable,
state-of-the-art solutions that integrates microfilm
images with today’s advanced document-management
systems, like ScanFile. Designed as an upgradable,
modular system it has simple controls and is network-ready. The
MS-400 & 800 provides compatibility with
all microfilm formats allowing simple digital conversion
of film archives into the ScanFile system. “With
the Canon scanners we are imaging about
2,000 documents a day. The copies are always
perfect and it’s so much faster to pull it
out of the Scanfile system,” states Leckey.”
