PARIS — The Register of Deeds website will get a fresh look after Oxford County commissioners swapped data management companies in a move that should save taxpayers money.
Commissioners on Tuesday night unanimously approved a bid from Liverpool, N.Y.-based Info Quick Solutions Inc. to redesign and maintain the county’s website, update computer equipment and track online users at the eastern registry office in Paris and western registry office in Fryeburg.
The county’s contract with its former records management company has expired. The new deal extends services until 2018.
The decision cuts the hosting fee for documents from $4.20 to $3.98. In 2013, the eastern division hosted roughly 16,000 deed documents online, the western 4,000; the projected savings at both offices total nearly $23,000, according to Oxford County Eastern District Register of Deeds Patricia Shearman.
The agreement also upgrades the server system as well as computers, scanners and printers used at both divisions.
Shearman told commissioners Tuesday night that she and Oxford County Western District Register of Deeds Jean Watson spent months reviewing six bids, and both came to the same consensus.
“The hope of this is the new system will be more user-friendly,” Shearman said.
The deal pends settling some concerns over how the number of documents each user accesses is tracked and fine-tuning legal language.
Under Maine law, registries are required to provide the first 500 pages free of charge to users, but does not stipulate how to keep track of the number. Shearman said the largest users, law firms and title researchers, pay a flat subscription rate and will be unaffected by the change.
The county’s former contract also remitted 90 percent of the revenues collected from the website to the county. Under the contract, the rate will be reduced to 75 percent, which will be offset by removing the $850 per month website-maintenance fee.
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