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I need a bit of help from the more techy savvy people out there

i'm working on a project and wondering if you might be able to direct me to a file sharing program that will meet my needs given this situation:

we have anywhere from 15-20 people working on various projects on their home computers. we need a centralized database where we can store these files.
we need 3 levels of access: 1 group of people need access to all files (the confidential information). 1 group needs access to most of the files. 1 group needs access to the remaining some of the documents.
it must be easy to upload large quantities of data at a time (i'm the one in charge of getting the old paper copies of things scanned in and uploaded - there are 3 file cabinet drawers worth of stuff!
i must be able to organize the docs once they're uploaded in some sort of folder type system
information cannot be stored on anyone's personal computer (thought about using drop-box but concerns were raised with having copies of confidential data stored on a personal computer that could be easily intercepted by those who should not have it)
some files need to be word docs where - for example - i could write the majority and up load it - and then you could download, edit it, and re-upload it. other docs need to be locked so no editing can take place (prolly will be saved as pdf's)
it has to be fairly easy and straight forward for everyone to use (not everyone in the group is very tech savvy)
it must be less than $150 per year

looked into 4shared, but when i tried their free version, it stopped working - although the pay version looks like it might work.
drop-box leaves hard copies of info on individual computers
considering google docs - but not sure if they have password protection and can handle having 3 different levels of access.

i'd like to investigate more options. do you have any suggestions as to what works well for you?

I don't have anything that I can recommend, but you should be aware of some things with regard to security.

If you are going to allow sharing of word documents so that people can edit them on their own computers there will be a copy of the document stored on their computer as a result of the edit. To prevent this you would need an online editor like google docs. Also, PDF display generally involves saving the file to disk and then displaying it (this is done automatically for you, but the file is still saved none the less). Even just viewing a web site can involve the pages being stored on disk in the browser cache unless they are specifically designed not to be cached. The bottom line is it's very hard to prevent data viewed online from being stored for at least some amount of time on your hard drive.

To that end many companies have a policy that confidential data may only be viewed using company equipment. It is easier to secure a computer with a firewall, virus protection, and screen locking than it is to keep data off of the hard drive in case that computer is compromised.

How many users do you have total? You could use a hosted SharePoint, in which case I can help you with the admin portion. http://www.microsoft.com/online/sharepoint-online.aspx

sharepoint is good. i've used it on a history grant project that I was involved in. people can save confidential data but that become thier liability once they have agreed as users to whatever access level you have granted them per their agreement.

basecamp

good things for me to consider

the really confidental stuff isn't going to be edited by other people - just the regular stuff. i just don't want that info automatically saved to their desktop once they disconnect from the internet for future viewing like what drop box does.

4shared.com. Once you confirm your email address, you get 15GB for free and 100GB for a low cost. You can password protect files and choose who gets to see the files or not. I love it.

dropbox or git