Newburgh – The City of Newburgh will be applying for a $57,000 grant from the New York State Archives Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund to bring record keeping up to date in a dozen departments.

The upgrade would place all hardcover books and paper copies on the “laser fiche” electronic document scanning and filing system, said Mayor Nicholas Valentine.

“Our recordkeeping goes back a very, very long time. You start adding it up; I’ve been in the records room and it’s a lot of information and there’s a lot of files,” he said. “The more you can get type of filing system the better off you are, especially if you are going to search something.”

According to Valentine, this has been done for a number of departments within the city already, but recordkeeping goes back years and assistance such as this is a huge advantage towards staying on top of it.

“The more you can get this type of filing system in there the better off you are,” he said, noting the efficiency in which information can be categorized and accessed at a future date.