The ultimate objective of a good Records Management Program is to help equip records custodians with the tools to “provide the right record, in the right place, at the right time.” The AOC Records Management Department is responsible for providing court officials within the Alabama Unified Judicial System assistance in dealing with the creation, organization, maintenance, preservation, retrieval and disposition of court records.

A sound records management program promotes economy and efficiency within an organization. The tools and assistance provided by the AOC Records Management staff helps court officials assure that valuable records are preserved and made available while needless records are disposed of in a timely fashion. Through records retention scheduling, on-site schedule implementation, microfilming and in more recent years, document imaging, the Records Management staff has helped clerk’s offices around the state identify, organize, convert to microform or digital format permanent court records, and helped dispose countless thousands of cubic feet of non-permanent records.

Over the past twenty years, through the efforts of the AOC Record Management Program and staff, combined with the guidance and training it has provided to court personnel, many benefits have been gained and financial resources saved to the Alabama Judicial System. These savings and gains have been made through a reduction of costs for records storage equipment and supplies, decreasing clerical staff time for filing and retrieval of records, decreasing the need for space allocated to records storage, reducing the number of lost or misplaced files, increasing information retrieval time while helping to preserve in a more durable fashion permanent court records, and by increasing the security of valuable records by preventing unauthorized access.

As records management processes, functions and systems has evolved over the years, so has the role and strategy of Records Manager’s. Court records have evolved from hand written documents to typed and word processed, from computer generated to digitally created and transmitted. Courts in many States, including Alabama, have been experimenting for several years with digitized information and imaged records. The advent of the Internet and the transition to electronic information management has made information far easier to manage – store, retrieve, view, and copy.

Since court officials and the citizens they serve value both the access to court records and their personal privacy, the transition of electronically produced records necessitates the need to consider whether the existing framework of laws, policies and practices of controlling access to court records prior to the emergence of e-records is adequate to address these important social goals. The AOC Records Management Program and staff will continue to work closely with court officials to develop policies and practices regarding who has access and under what conditions, and providing guidelines for the management of records in the digital age.

The Administrative Office of Courts and the Unified Judicial System’s affiliated trial court sites are included as one of the top 10 state agencies in terms of the number of non-consumable personal property items that it has on inventory. Approximately 8,000 active items, with a value of $500 or more, are currently included on the UJS inventory with an acquisition value in excess of $13,000,000. The AOC Property Management Division is charged with the responsibility of assigning and entering these items into an online inventory maintenance system, affixing inventory stickers on each item, and maintaining current inventories of all this property as well as keeping up with who these items have been assigned to. Managing this amount of property assets, spread out across the state in a variety of locations, with such a large number of officials in possession of these items, is an awesome task to say the least.

Alabama Law requires that each state department or agency create an established control all non-consumable personal property of the value of $500 or more owned by the state and used by said department or agency. The head of each department or agency is required to designate a property manager whose duty shall be to maintain a full and complete inventory of all such property thereafter acquired. The inventory must show all the complete description, manufacturer, serial number, cost price, date of purchase, location and custodial agency, responsible officer or employee and an inventory control number of each item. A copy of such inventory must be submitted to the State Auditor’s Property Inventory Control Division October 1 and April 1 of each year. The designated property manager for each state agency is required to keep at all times in their files a copy of all inventories submitted to the State Auditor’s Property Inventory Control Division, and said copies are subject to examination by any and all state auditors or employees of the Department of Examiners of Public Accounts.

The law further requires that when any such property items are entrusted to other employees or officers within its department or agency, the designated property manager shall require a written, signed receipt of each such property item entrusted, and that employee or officer shall then become the responsible person for said property. Additionally, no such property may be disposed of, transferred, assigned or entrusted to any other department, agency or employee thereof without the knowledge and written permission of the State Auditor’s Property Inventory Control Division.

The AOC Property Management Division conducts an annual internal on-site property audit each year and the State Auditor’s Property Inventory Control Division conducts a biannual on-site audit every other year. This process would be impossible without the assistance and cooperation of all officials within the Alabama Unified Judicial System.