Introducing Modern Technology Solutions to Attain an Innovative Vision
Coconut Creek, Florida has a clearly defined vision to be an innovative, inclusive, and progressive community with a small-town personal touch, and a mission to provide responsive and sustainable services to its residents. To realize its vision and mission, Coconut Creek’s City Clerk Department determined that it needed an advanced suite of technology products that would help streamline its agenda process, reduce paper use, and enhance access and transparency.
The agenda preparation process in Coconut Creek relied heavily on paper and required long hours spent by staff compiling the information. Department staff drafted agenda items and provided printed copies of each agenda item package to the City Clerk Department. The paper sets of each agenda item were reviewed by the City Clerk and the City Attorney, returned to the initiating departments for editing, and reprinted for submission to the City Manager’s Office. Additional edits from the City Manager would be documented and final reprinted sets returned to the City Clerk for final processing. The whole process resulted in 16 printed, manually collated sets of the final agenda package.
New Process Improves Access for Residents, Boosts Internal Culture
Creating agendas had been a major undertaking for Coconut Creek’s City Clerk Department prior to implementing Granicus’ govMeetings Legistar. This solution not only gave residents access to meeting information quickly and succinctly, but it also enhanced efficiency and coordination among internal stakeholders. With the transition from paper to digital, staff saw exponential time savings and a reduction in stress levels over compiling agendas, resulting in a morale boost and improved office culture.
Coconut Creek also used govMeetings to record meetings, convert audio to an accessible format, timestamp agenda items, and publish the audio to the website for public access within the same week of the meeting. Prior to implementing Granicus technology, staff from multiple departments would have to coordinate these tasks and the audio would not be available until the week following the meeting due to the decentralized nature of the process. By using govMeetings, Coconut Creek can accomplish all these tasks in a single platform, while reducing the number of staff required and the overall time to complete the tasks.
Digital Solutions Enhance Resident Engagement, Drive Sustainability and Time-Saving Efforts
The Granicus suite of products provided a “one-stop shop” for the public to access agendas, public notices, meeting minutes, and archives to better engage with local government and participate in the local decision-making process. Since the first year of implementation, Coconut Creek has seen a 238% average increase in access to online agenda content. During the last fiscal year, Coconut Creek provided the public, staff, and elected officials with quick, digital access to 102 meeting agendas and 103 public notices.
Additionally, govMeetings positively impacted operations within the City Clerk’s Department. Implementing digital solutions within Coconut Creek reduced the amount of paper used for agendas by 75% and saved staff 378 hours.
