 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.”
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.
 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 upgradeable, 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.”
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.
Copyright © 2002 Active Data Systems Inc.
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"We
feel we have the best filing system 
