The versatility of Laserfiche’s electronic document technology has inspired creative applications that have taken the paper out of countless government agencies and operations over the past 20 years. Now it’s reaching outside the office into that bastion of paper rustling, public government meetings.

Armed with laptops, compact discs and/or internet access, elected officials are working from electronic agendas that run the meetings that run local government. The technology eliminates mountains of paper, helps with organizing those meetings and—perhaps most important—puts much more information into the hands of the decisions makers as they make those decisions.

“I love it,” says Ramsey, NJ, Borough Clerk Meredith Bendian. “Now the mayor and council open their laptops, call up the agenda and click on the various links for each agenda item as they work their way through the meeting.”

The Ramsey clerk’s office started scanning and storing meeting minutes and other paperwork into a Laserfiche database in January. Ramsey Councilman Arthur Nalbandian heard that other New Jersey communities were using Laserfiche software to help run their municipal meetings, and suggested it might work in Ramsey.

It took two training sessions and over $20,000 in computer equipment— including 10 laptops—but in January the Ramsey Borough Council had its first paperless meeting. They’ve had 21 such meetings since.

“Our council is receiving it very well,” Bendian says. “It enables us to link to every document that has to do with whatever agenda item we’re working on. We put it all in there together with the agenda.”

Bendian builds the electronic agenda by scanning all the upcoming meeting business into Laserfiche, including agenda items requested by the various department heads and any internal supporting documentation those department heads may have submitted for those items. Public communications to the mayor and council are also scanned in.

All that is then burned onto a compact disc that’s handed out to the six council members, mayor and other council officials before the meeting. Before going paperless, all that was printed out and photocopied.

“You wouldn’t believe the number of copies of all these documents that we were making before each meeting,” Bendian says.

While the use of Laserfiche for paperless meetings is an extremely useful innovation, the benefits of Laserfiche can go much further, according to Greg Hart, Borough Administrator for nearby Franklin Lakes. Hart is a strong proponent of paperless meeting technology and has given demonstrations on the subject before the Municipal Clerks’ Association of New Jersey.

Hart introduced the Borough of Old Tappan to the paperless meeting before moving to his new job in Franklin Lakes. His first task at his new job was getting Franklin Lakes government departments scanning and storing their paperwork into a brand new Laserfiche system. Next, the Mayor and Council authorized $30,000 worth of computer hardware and software, including Laserfiche’s WebLink, which provides secure Web access to the Borough’s Laserfiche database.

Reflecting on his first paperless meeting in Old Tappan back in 2004, Hart says, “I’ll never forget it, because it was the most efficient meeting we’d had to date. The Mayor and Council benefit because they have ability to easily access information and, as a result, the governing body makes more informed decisions. Ultimately, they are able to govern more effectively and more efficiently.”

Bendian says she hopes one day soon to take Ramsey’s government operations in the same direction as Franklin Lakes. Hart believes it’s a logical extension of Ramsey’s current program. If Bendian is already scanning all those documents from the various department heads into her database to build each meeting agenda, Hart says, the next logical step is place those documents into a borough-wide Laserfiche system.

“If you’re going to go to paperless meeting and scanning all these documents into some sort of system you might as well have a document management system to organize it all,” he says. “Even if it’s only the documents for the paperless meetings. You start with the concept of the paperless meeting and it becomes an electronic document management system.”

Word of the paperless office is getting out to other New Jersey communities, in part due to Hart’s demonstrations before the Municipal Clerks Association. In Toms River, two council members are working from electronic agendas and the township plans on moving forward with full implementation, according to deputy clerk Alison Carlisle.

In Woodcliff Lake Councilman John Glaser also conducted a trial run using a laptop with both compact discs and internet access to the borough’s Laserfiche database. The trial went well and now he wants to get the rest of the council onboard.

“It’s obviously valuable for preparing for a meeting,” Glaser says. “We did some tweaking with it, but it looked good.”

There is always some customization involved Hart says, but often the hardest thing about transitioning to paperless meetings is winning over skeptical borough hall staff and elected officials. Closter Mayor Sophie Heymann says she’d like to bring paperless meetings to her borough but while staff have shown an interest, she suspects they are a little intimidated. She also wondered about security issues.

Those are understandable but unnecessary fears, both Bendian and Hart say. When working from CDs, the security concerns are no different than working from a paper agenda, and when working from the internet, everything is secured by password.

“I think the real reluctance of communities to embrace this technology depends on how computer savvy the staffers and elected officials are,” Bendian says. “All our council members are all computer literate, which helps. They were all on board for doing this right from the start.”

Hart says in the two communities he’s introduced to paperless meetings it’s been well worth the work.
“There is significant investment but the pay off is so much more than the input,” Hart says. “For us it was very user friendly, and the mayor and council adjusted very quickly. The important thing is that nobody is shuffling papers any more.”

Tags: agenda management, local government, municipal government, State & Local Government

Posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 9:08 am under Customer Stories, State & Local Government. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.