RIM professionalism in a political arena: local government offers unique challenges for the records manager in public service. Taking a proactive approach to enhancing customer service will pay dividends.

• Author: Mims, Julian L.
• Position: Industry Focus

According to the U.S. Department of Interior, there are 3,141 counties / boroughs/parishes / independent cities in the United States. That suggests that there are more than 10,000 county-level offices. For those interested in local government records, these figures represent a significant opportunity for records and information management (RIM) services.

A League of Its Own

Although some might expect county records and information management programs to be fundamentally the same as in other industries, they have many unique challenges. Their environments may, in fact, differ significantly even between one county and its closest neighbor.

Local government eccentricities include the constantly shifting political sphere, its close accountability to the public, and its savings consciousness. These factors create a climate quite apart from that of the private sector. It can correctly be said that local government is closer to its constituencies than is business and industry, and in this sector there may be continual scrutiny of operations by the media and the voters.

The environment within which county records managers must be effective is also different than in other areas of local government. School district information management programs, for example, tend to be centered on--if not wholly controlled by--information technology (IT) departments. Municipalities, in further contrast to counties, place a heavy emphasis upon an appointed hegemony of executives and department heads. County government, in contrast, elects most of its leaders. These elected department heads (who are fundamentally accountable only to the body politic) can be fiercely independent. It should be no surprise, then, that county government RIM is often inefficient, disjointed, uncoordinated, and decentralized--factors that often inhibit RIM program development. As any county employee will attest, elected county leaders sometimes have to be approached circumspectly by support services such as RIM. So the human relations component of RIM, significant across all types of RIM initiatives, is even more pronounced in courthouses and county office buildings.

Working in Glass Houses

Another feature of local government further suggests its distinctiveness. Local government is that closest to the people. Thomas Jefferson once wrote in a letter to Samuel Kercheval that county government has the offices "nearest and most interesting" to the citizens.

More so than municipalities, county government handles citizens' fee-based and records-related transactions, such as business licenses, auto tags, and marriage licenses. Constant scrutiny may result from this closeness, for county operations--including recordkeeping and open-records mandates--are conducted in a goldfish bowl. Assessed variously by citizens, "blue ribbon commissions," grand juries, the press, attorneys, special interest groups, auditors, state/federal agencies, consultants, and other parties, county employees may supply their own connotation of the term "public exposure." This degree of examination, by parties from within and outside the local government infrastructure, reveals another dimension of the uniqueness of county operations: Any resident can call and complain to commissioners or administrators. If the commissioner "looks into" the situation, he or she is "standing up for good government," and support services like RIM may be...