Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Troup County Archives will be increasing its services for Troup County and the county’s cities in the next budget year, which begins July 1. The increase is due to rising costs for the Archives preservation services, which covers equipment, general operations and staff costs.

Shannon Johnson, executive director of the Troup County Archives, said this increase is set to happen to the city of LaGrange, Troup County and the Troup County School System who all currently have agreements with the Archives to preserve various records. The three entities will see a 38.6% increase in the Archives services for the FY 2023 budget. In the last budget year, the three entities paid $98,410. Now, they will pay $136,423. Johnson said the cost of providing services has increased by 47.9% from 2019 to the projected FY 2022 – 2023 costs.

“Everything has gone up,” Johnson said. “Everything from insurance to the archival supplies we need to process the government records to our employees’ health insurance [has increased.] Plus, we haven’t given our employees a raise in quite some time, and it’s hitting substantially with the current economic conditions. There really wasn’t any way around it. We are a non-profit, and we realize we’re using tax money so we don’t want to ask too much, but we do have to ask for enough to sustain [ourselves.]”

The Archives does not currently have an agreement with the city of West Point and only just started its agreement with the city of Hogansville in May. The city of Hogansville elected to enter into an agreement with the Archives to preserve its records and other documents at an annual cost of $28,000. Johnson said this agreement is significantly less than the other three entities due to the city’s size.

The Troup County School Board agreed to the increase at its last board meeting on May 19. The city of LaGrange has incorporated the increase included in its FY 2022 – 2023 budget, which will be finalized in June.

• professional services (accounting, IT, shredding, maintenance, etc.) have increased 60.99% since 2019
• utilities have increased 35.7%
• archival and records supplies have increased 234%
• equipment maintenance has increased 455%
• building and liability insurance has increased 21.4%
• health insurance (which is included in payroll expenses) increased 306%