The effort to convert the thousands of files in the Schuylkill County Prothonotary’s office is getting more expensive.

An additional 3,800 more files have been found, resulting in a charge of $26,368.

Money from the prothonotary’s automation fund, an account funded through state required court fees paid for all documents filed in the prothonotary’s office, will pay for the cost.

Last month, the Schuylkill County Commissioners voted to convert the files - estimated at 2 million plus - from TIF to PDF-PDFA format. Scantek, a company based in Columbia, Maryland, was hired for the work.

Originally, the cost was slated at $15,650. Work was estimated to take six to eight months to do, and is now estimated to take 12 to 15 months.

After the conversion, the development of an in-house document service is next. A cost for online services was not provided. Documents that are public knowledge will be accessible online. Sealed cases will not.

The office is also getting new computers to replace the ones that are nine years old. All improvements will be paid for through the automation fund.