Alea Dorsey-Tyler knows searching for the right government documents can be taxing.
Hours upon hours of flipping through folders and rummaging through boxes all to find something that could easily be found if codified digitally and posted on a municipal website.
She knows this, in part, because that is what she has been helping Bethel Park officials do since early June.
“I’ve always been interested in local government,” Dorsey -Tyler said. “One of the things with the document retention project is that you really have the ability to see all of the government. So, I have worked with every single department here. If you’re going through people’s papers you have an ability to learn from them and see the inner workings and the stuff that goes into it.”
The Carnegie Mellon University student is assisting borough officials through an internship via the Local Government Academy. She is studying for a master’s degree in public policy management.
Her bachelor’s degree in political science is from UCLA.
The first part of the document project is to analyze the paper records in accordance with state requirements and find out what needs to be kept and what could be thrown away.
Borough director of special projects Drew Dowdell said another part is the creation of a digital organization system that takes the documents required to be retained and digitizes them.
“What Alea is doing is kind of getting the system up and running so that we have a way to catalog all the digital files,” Dowdell said. “Unfortunately, she’s not going to be with us long enough to see the import of all those files. We’re going to be hiring an outside company to come in and scan all of those documents.
“We have thousands of cartons of documents that need to get scanned in … When she’s done we’re going to be a substantially more efficient government.”
Dorsey-Tyler, 29, of Pittsburgh was recently recognized for her efforts at a borough council meeting.
“She is a rock star,” manager Laurence Christian said. “She can write her own ticket. A lot of brains, a lot of drive … It is truly a pleasure to say thank you for what you do each and every day.”
He said her project helps reduce the office’s operational footprint and helps get rid of paperwork that is no longer needed.
Dorsey-Tyler said she had not decided on a career path yet. Her last day with the borough is expected to be Aug. 13.
“I like working with computer systems and operations, so a lot of the stuff that I’m doing here is finding pain points in people’s jobs and creating streamlined solutions – so something like that, probably in a local government or a state government capacity,” she said.
