Meeting of the Board of Regents | June 2007

SUMMARY

Issue for Discussion

The New York State Archives is working with SED’s Office of Management Services and the Office of General Services to develop plans for an expansion to the current State Records Center on the edge of the State Office Campus.  This area is not included in plans for the reuse of the campus, and the expansion of the records center will allow the Archives to meet its obligations to store the inactive records of state agencies.  The current plan envisions a doubling of available space in the records center.

Proposed Handling

This issue will come before the Trusteeship Committee at its June meeting.

Procedural History

This plan responds to the fact that a planned expansion of the State Records Center in the Office of Cultural Education’s stewardship facility, now under development, is no longer an option.  Given the need to increase space at the records center, SED’s Office of Management Services began discussions with the Office of General Services on an expansion of the records center building at the State Office Campus.

Background Information

              The State Records Center currently holds about 235,000 cubic feet of records, but it has been at or above capacity for the last several years. In the absence of available space at the records center, some state agencies have been forced to seek alternative records storage space.  Their choices are either much higher priced commercial storage or use of their own facilities, which are often already crowded.  The planned expansion to the records center, will allow the Archives to guarantee storage space for state agency inactive records and will provide additional space for the storage of archival records.

Recommendation

Staff recommend that the Regents support our efforts to ensure the better management of the state’s records through making increased and reasonably priced storage space available to our state agency customers.

Timetable for Implementation

OGS plans to develop an initial program review for the expansion by the end of July.  SED has submitted an initial budget request for the FY2008-2009 budget.  If this plan moves forward on schedule, the addition to the records center will be complete by 2010.