By Zach Simeone

KNOX — As work to renovate Town Hall trudges on in the New Year, steps are being taken to re-invent how the town looks at records management.

At its meeting Tuesday, the town board voted unanimously to have Attorney John Dorfman draw up contracts with K Sickler-Murphy, records management consultants, to inventory, build a database, and perform a needs assessment for all records at Town Hall. This was Travis Stevens’s first regular meeting as a town councilman.

But the scope of K Sickler-Murphy’s work may now be limited by cuts to grant money for records retention from the state. Knox was originally slated to receive $10,100, which was reduced last month to $7,650.

“It seems like the amount of money we’re getting is only going to be half of what our original grant was,” Supervisor Michael Hammond said Wednesday. “What we spoke about last night will most likely happen, but the scope of what has to be considered is not going to be as great as what we talked about last night.”

Kathy Sickler and Kerry Murphy came to the Jan. 12 meeting on behalf of their firm to convince the town board that they were right for the job, making use of a PowerPoint presentation in the process.

Sickler, a former town clerk for Guilderland, is also the former president of the Albany-Schenectady Town Clerks’ Association, and has over 20 years of experience in records management, for which she has received international and New York State awards. Murphy received an entrepreneur of the year award in 2000, and was a zoning board of appeals member for seven years in Guilderland.

During the presentation, Sickler said that records management is “a consistent application of laws, rules, and regulations of the town’s government.” The pair showed photographs exemplifying what they called poor management, in one case pointing to folded planning documents.

“You don’t fold maps and plans,” Sickler said. “The worst you do is roll them.”

One consequence of disorganized records, they said, is reduced employee productivity.

“You don’t want the inactive records in the active office space,” Sickler said.

Once their company is able to determine the growth rate for a town’s records, they take that figure and multiply it by 130 percent to determine how much storage space will be needed for the next 10 years, said Sickler.

This process can also involve the creation of a records advisory committee.

“That way, the onus is not only on the town clerk,” Sickler said after the meeting.

The pair calculated that, by the end of the process, they would be able to save the town $7,584 in storage costs.

More construction

Also at the meeting Tuesday, the town board approved payments for Town Hall construction to the following contractors in the following amounts:

— Rotterdam General Contracting, to be paid $27,395 for site work;

— M.A. Schafer Construction, to be paid $5,850 for foundation work, $17,619 for framing work, and $10,350 for roof work;

— Wainschaf Associates, to be paid $134,251 for general work;

— Tri-Valley Plumbing and Heating, to be paid $10,793 for plumbing work; and

— Phoenix Electrical Company, to be paid $27,193 for electrical work.

Other business

In other business at its Jan. 12 meeting, the town board:

— Authorized Supervisor Hammond to disperse snowmobile grant money from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to local snowmobile clubs, with $2,061.36 to be paid to the Frontier Sno Riders, and $458.64 to be paid to Ridgerunners;

— Reviewed interior finish colors for the Town Hall project, as presented by Charles Sacco of Sacco and McKinney Architects;

— Voted unanimously to purchase a new door from Altamont Glass to replace the current main door, which will become a side entrance in the renovated town hall. The new door will cost about $4,100, Clerk Kimberly Swain said;

— Agreed to have Attorney John Dorfman draw up a contract with Maven Technologies in Rochester for electronics recycling; and

— Announced that the Knox Winter Festival will take place Sunday, Jan. 31.

Appointments

At its Jan. 1 re-organizational meeting, the town board swore in the officials elected on Nov. 3, and made appointments for this year. The town’s elected and appointed officials and boards are as follows, with terms expiring on Dec. 31, 2010 unless otherwise noted:

Town Board: Michael Hammond (supervisor), Patricia Gage, Mary Ellen Nagengast, Nicholas Viscio, and Travis Stevens;

Planning Board: Robert Price (chairman, term to expire Dec. 31, 2012), Betty Ketcham (Dec. 31, 2016), Daniel Driscoll (Dec. 31, 2015), Robert Gwinn (Dec. 31, 2014), Thomas Wolfe (Dec. 31, 2013), Brett Pulliam (Dec. 31, 2011), and Stewart Kidder (Dec. 31, 2010);

Zoning Board of Appeals: Robert Edwards (chairman, term expires Dec. 31, 2011), Gail Burgess (Dec. 31, 2016), James McDonald (Dec. 31, 2015), Dennis Barber (Dec. 31, 2014), Sue Mason (Dec. 31, 2013), Kenneth Kirik (Dec. 31, 2012), and Amy Pokorny (Dec. 31, 2010);

Board of Assessment Review: Tim Frederick (chairman, term expires Sept. 30, 2010), Howard Zimmer (Sept. 30, 2011), Vall Pulliam (Sept. 30, 2012), Joycelyn Farrar (Sept. 30, 2013), and Gerald Irwin (Sept. 30, 2014);

Conservation Advisory Council: Cheryl Frantzen (chairwoman, term expires Dec. 31, 2011), Patricia Irwin (Dec. 31, 2012), Earl Barcomb Jr. (Dec. 31, 2013), Stephanie Baron (Dec. 31, 2015), and Hank Donnelly (Dec. 31, 2016). There are two vacant seats;

Youth Committee: Mary Ellen Nagengast (ex-officio), Charles Conklin, Jean Forti, Ed Schmidt, Grace Cunningham, Rich Matlock, Sue VonHaugg, Jean Gagnon, Brett Pulliam, Janet Viscio, Laurie Picinich, and Ann Payne;

Highway Superintendent: Gary Salisbury;

Deputy Highway Superintendent: Loren Shafer Jr.;

Town Attorney: John Dorfman;

Town Judges: Jean Gagnon and Linda Quay;

Town Clerk: Kimberly Swain;

Deputy Town Clerk: Mary Alice Geel;

Registrar of Vital Statistics: Helen Quay;

Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics: Deborah Liddle;

Tax Collector: Delia Palombo;

Deputy Tax Collector: Lee Martin;

Town Historian: Cheryl Frantzen;

Emergency Preparedness Coordinator: Dennis Decker;

Deputy Supervisor: Nicholas Viscio;

Data Collector: Ed Nicholson;

Building and Sanitation Inspector, Zoning Administrator: Robert Delaney;

Assistant Building Inspector: Daniel Sherman;

Animal Control Officer: John Norray;

Park Laborer: Louis Saddlemire;

Youth Director: Mary Ellen Nagengast;

Court Clerk: Deborah Liddle;

Court Officer: John McGivern;

Bookkeeper: Catherine Bates;

Auditor: Beryl Grant;

Landfill Attendants: David Quay, Louis Tubbs, and Richard Dexter;

Minutes Recorder for Zoning Board: Carol Barber;

Minutes Recorder for Planning Board: Catherine Traina;

Official Bank: Key Bank; and

Official Newspaper: The Altamont Enterprise.