Pennsylvania Statutes Title 16 P.S. Counties § 3405. Offices, records and papers

(a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (a.1), the commissioners, controller, treasurer, sheriff, recorder of deeds, prothonotary, clerk of courts, clerk of the orphans' court, register of wills, recorder of deeds and district attorney shall keep their respective offices and all public records and papers belonging thereto at the county seat and in such buildings as may be erected or appropriated for such purpose.

(a.1) The county commissioners shall have the power to keep and maintain records and to contract with persons for storage, retrieval and transmission of county records within or outside the county, except that no records shall be stored outside the county seat without the approval of the officer in charge of the office to which the records belong. The approval of the president judge shall be required if records are in the custody of agencies of the court of common pleas, the clerk of courts, the prothonotary, the register of wills and the clerk of the orphans' court. Public records stored outside of the county seat shall be made accessible to the general public at the county seat by means of an electronic telecopying system or facility which will permit the retrieval of the records or exact copies thereof within three business days.

(a.2) The county commissioners shall have the power to impose a fee on recorded instruments required to be kept permanently that are filed with the county. The county commissioners, with the approval of the president judge, shall have the power to impose a fee on civil or criminal cases filed in the court of common pleas. The fees will be collected by the appropriate row officer and deposited in a special records management fund, administered by the county's records management program in the Office of Management and Productivity or, in the absence of such an office, an office that handles the same or similar functions. The fund shall be solely used to help defray the cost of maintaining, administering, preserving and caring for the records of the county.

(b) The county commissioners shall furnish each of such officers with an office in the county building, courthouse or other building at the county seat.

(c) Any person failing or refusing to maintain his office and to keep all public records and papers belonging thereto in the buildings appropriated for such purpose, in accordance with the provisions of this section, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to undergo imprisonment until he complies with the provisions of this section, or until sooner discharged by order of the court, and to pay a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, to be paid to the use of the county.