Knox to receive $23K grant to reorganize, reshelve records
Enterprise file photo — H. Rose Schneider
Files are stacked on shelves in the Knox town hall basement. Councilwoman Amy Pokorny said in February that the shelves are too weak to bear most of the physical records; some of the shelves were bowed under the weight.
KNOX — The town of Knox became one of 70 recipients of a statewide grant to improve its records system. The town received $23,156 after town Clerk Tara Murphy applied for it this past winter.
The grant is from the Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund, and will pay for efforts to archive important documents and reorganize the town records. Murphy notified the town board on June 13.
Part of Murphy’s proposal included using women-owned businesses in the archival process, such as for designing shelves. Because of this, the town doesn’t need to submit certain forms, and will receive half of the awarded funds by the beginning of July.
“The very first thing will be to meet with the New York State regional representative,” said Murphy, last week. This will involve going over the proposal and creating steps for the process.
The town will be getting new archive boxes for storage and will put in new shelves that are wider than the current library shelves being used in Knox’s basement.
Knox Councilwoman Amy Pokorny, who assisted Murphy in making the application, told The Enterprise this week that the Knox Volunteer Fire Company will be using the town hall basement and its new archive system to store some of its records.
“So it would be a shared facility,” Pokorny said.
