SUCCESS STORY | City of Calabasas, CA
A better parks & rec experience: How Calabasas cut staff time by 75% with digital forms
OVERVIEW
The staff and residents of the City of Calabasas, California, were frustrated by an inefficient, paper-based waitlist for its popular Tennis and Swim Center. The city turned to Granicus’ Forms & Workflow solution to create a streamlined digital tracking process that manages a large, high-profile waitlist with far less effort and far greater transparency. This resulted in a dramatic decrease in widely felt frustration and measurable improvements in staff bandwidth and customer trust.
SITUATION
The Calabasas Tennis and Swim Center is a highly sought-after, city-run facility featuring 16 tennis courts, a junior Olympic pool, and a fitness center. Its popularity led to an extensive waitlist of more than 8,000 people.
The process for joining the hefty waitlist was entirely manual. Residents had to visit the facility, fill out paper forms, and receive a physical card with their waitlist number. Staff tracked entries in binders and manually called individuals when spots opened — often years later.
This approach created several challenges:
“It all just became too difficult to track,” explained Lana Filice, recreation supervisor for the City of Calabasas. “It was staff-intensive; when we’d call citizens, we’d have to literally thumb through a book of contacts — and since we had years-long waitlists, people would lose their card or change phone numbers and miss their chance to join the facility.”
It was clear that the city needed a more accessible and reliable way to manage demand.
SOLUTION
“Working with our IT and Community Services team, we developed an online form that residents can complete from any device,” explained Mayor James Bozajian. “Each submission is automatically dated and time stamped, stored electronically, and followed by a confirmation email — so the residents have proof they joined the list. This replaced a paper-based system with a reliable digital workflow that staff can sort, audit, and manage much more efficiently while also supporting fairness and transparency in how names are pulled from the list.”
The department expanded its use of Forms & Workflow to digitize additional workflows, such as incident reporting and maintenance tracking. These centralized records reduced reliance on paper processes and improved internal accountability and visibility across the department.
“Granicus Forms helps simplify our processes,” said Filice. “Cutting back on the time spent is really huge for everyone involved.”
🔎 PROOF POINT: Employees at agencies with automated service delivery workflows reported a 30% lower rate of staff burnout and up to 60% more time spent on high-value, citizen-facing tasks.
RESULTS
“The results have been significant,” said Mayor Bozajian. “Staff time spent managing the waitlist dropped from about 8-10 hours per week to just 1-2 hours. More than 90% of new entries now come through the online form, and disputes over whether someone was already on the list have dropped by an estimated 80%. Residents can now sign up more easily, often outside normal business hours, and we have a clear process that improves customer service, efficiency, and public trust.”
The new system also improved data accuracy by creating verifiable records for every submission, reducing disputes and uncertainty around waitlist placement. Collecting email addresses alongside phone numbers strengthened communication, making it easier to reach residents when spots became available.
📈 TREND WATCH: Digital service delivery is becoming a trust builder
Trust improves when residents can clearly track and complete services online. According to the latest State of Digital Government Report, customer satisfaction scores rise for agencies that make digital service delivery a priority.
- Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) for digital government services hover around 58 out of 100.
- Agencies that implemented unified “single sign-on” portals and proactive status updates saw their CSAT scores jump to 74.
Internally, the shift away from paper processes and face-to-face conversations with frustrated residents reduced administrative burden. Improved recordkeeping and clearer visibility into demand trends ultimately helps leadership make more informed decisions about future programming and facility planning.
Transforming a cumbersome process into an intuitive digital experience proves how targeted modernization can deliver meaningful — and even award-winning — gains in efficiency and service. “Sometimes when you have an idea and just move forward with it, the results are even better than anticipated,” said Filice.
This story highlights the hard work and innovation that earned the City of Calabasas recognition as a winner in the 15th Annual Granicus Digital Government Awards, honoring exceptional achievements in digital government.
