The Rowan County Clerk’s Office has undergone an upgrade in their record keeping. After applying for and receiving $182,747.71 in grant funds, officials said it will be easier than ever for people to find historical valuations for their properties.
Elwood Caudill Jr., Rowan County Clerk, said this is a game changer for his office. He said getting all these documents digitized was a large undertaking but is one that will benefit many across Rowan County.
“I had a company come in and digitize from 1962 all the way to 2023, property books. And what that does is sometimes when people need to see, if they inherited a piece of property that their parents received back in 1990, and they need to know what that value was back in 1990 versus today’s date,” said Caudill.
Caudill said historical records continue to have a large impact on tax expenses and more.
“Before, if someone needed to know an assessment, these books were stacked head-high, if not a little bit above, there’s two books per year. So, if that book was at the very bottom, I had to move every book that was on top of it off, and they are very heavy, so it was very hard to get to that book,” said Caudill.
Caudill said the new digital records will make it easier to look up properties and catalogue information for easier, quicker, and safer searches.
Caudill said now that the books are digitized, physical copies will be moved to climate-controlled storage. Future books will continue to be made in physical copies and would require more grant funding to scan into the system at a future date.