Nine rural Colorado counties have already requested nearly $20,000 in funding to purchase laptops for their clerks to use in remote operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Electronic Recording Technology Board approved $200,000 in emergency grants for counties to purchase up to three computers to ensure continuity of services throughout the stay-at-home order. The board normally awards money to counties for upgrading their offices’ land recording hardware and software.

Fremont, Saguache, Conejos, Clear Creek, Montrose, Routt, Moffat, Archuleta and Morgan counties each requested between $1,480 and $4,984 to purchase the laptops. Conejos, Routt and Morgan intend to buy three computers each, and the remainder will purchase two. Moffat County will take one. The money will go toward buying the equipment outright or reimbursing a recent purchase.

Justin D. Grantham, the clerk and recorder for Fremont County, said that pandemic aside, “the need for a backup system was on my to-do list. The ability to log in, answer questions, verify documents and keep up with paperwork is a necessity,” especially if the office is shut down during a natural disaster or if an employee attends an out-of-town training.

Currently, as long as one employee remains in the office, another can remotely process electronically-recorded documents and certified copy requests, answer questions, perform indexing and complete daily recording system tasks. Grantham said that in the future, thanks to the laptops, “if I were to ever reclaim lost ground and open up satellite motor vehicle branch again, I can have a satellite recording department as well to issue marriage licenses or record documents from a secondary location.”

The clerk and recorder of Clear Creek County, Brenda L. Corbett, did not see the need for laptops prior to COVID-19, as she had an employee in the office daily to perform recording work. However, the laptops will be useful for remote work during the pandemic as well as during future conferences. “As a small county, this purchase would not have been within our budget,” she said.

Separately this month, the board also approved nearly $39,000 for Cheyenne County and $127,000 for Las Animas County to enable digitization of historical land records.

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to reflect that Corbett is the clerk of Clear Creek County.