State and Local Government Archive

Data Gover-nuances

Florence, AZ, gets big value from re-investing in its Laserfiche system

February 9th, 2010 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

florence AZThe Town of Florence, AZ, is a modest town of just over 20,000 located between Phoenix and Tucson. Even with its small size, Florence has always had big ideas for how to use Laserfiche to do more with less, growing its system from a simple archiving tool to a town-wide enterprise content management (ECM) and business process management (BPM) solution.

Our approach to technology has always been to be proactive, not reactive,” says Town Clerk Lisa Garcia.
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Making Enterprise Content Management Accessible to All

In Westminster, CA, a collaborative, inter-departmental team spearheads adoption of Laserfiche

February 1st, 2010 by Meghann WoosterMeghann Wooster is a Laserfiche Luminary

westminsterIt takes a village to raise a child, and it takes teamwork to change a city. For Westminster, a city of nearly 100,000 people located in Southern California’s Orange County, the need to change was highlighted when a new Assistant City Clerk—Pat Jacquez-Nares—came onboard.
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Ahead of the Game

Outagamie County, WI, uses Laserfiche agile ECM to improve IT services while empowering departments

January 26th, 2010 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

outagamie countyOutagamie County, WI, has a tradition of innovation. Appleton, its county seat, is home to Hearthstone, the very first home in the United States to be powered solely by Thomas Edison’s hydroelectric technology and light bulbs, way back in 1882. Now, almost 130 years later, that innovative spirit can be seen in the county’s deployment of Laserfiche agile enterprise content management (ECM) to expand and enhance information services in several departments.
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WebLink Wonderland

Mountains are for snow, not paper, in Vail, CO

December 9th, 2009 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

VailcoloradotownlogoWhen you think of Vail, you think of a winter wonderland of world-class skiing by day and cozy, snowed-in evenings in front of a roaring fire by night. So do the wealth of seasonal visitors and second homeowners that make their way to the outdoor recreation destination in numbers that can quadruple the town’s modest population of 5,000 residents. “Vail’s a small town with a huge national and international visitor population which can grow to over 20,000 at times,” says Michael Wolfe, the Town’s records manager.
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Rehabilitating Content Management

Implementing Laserfiche in the LaPorte County court system and beyond

November 12th, 2009 by Meghann WoosterMeghann Wooster is a Laserfiche Luminary

la-porte-countyAs chief probation officer for LaPorte Superior Court No. 4 in Indiana, Steve Eyrick knows a great deal about rehabilitation. Every day, he works with clients who’ve been charged with misdemeanors and Class D felonies, and it’s his job to help them turn their lives around.

Of his probationers, Eyrick says, “They’re just people who make some bad decisions. I try to focus on their issues and their individual dynamics, while at the same time testing them and making sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”
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Complaint Management

The Texas Medical Board uses Laserfiche to respond more quickly to consumer complaints

November 12th, 2009 by Meghann WoosterMeghann Wooster is a Laserfiche Luminary

texas-medical-boardThere’s little in life that’s more personal than health care, and those of us who have faced serious illness know how important it is to receive quality care from a doctor we trust. Unfortunately, not all medical professionals consistently provide the highest level of patient care, and that’s where, in Texas, the Texas Medical Board comes into play.

As the state regulatory agency charged with protecting citizens’ health and safety, the Medical Board regulates the practice of medicine in Texas by licensure, discipline and education. It has a legislative mandate to file and track all complaints filed on any doctor licensed in the state—typically hundreds of them a year.
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Building Out the IT Infrastructure with ECM

CCCSD leverages Laserfiche to improve information access and ensure employee efficiency

November 11th, 2009 by Meghann WoosterMeghann Wooster is a Laserfiche Luminary

cccsdThere’s little in life that’s more elemental than water. And yet, in most developed countries, it’s easy to take access to safe water and sanitation for granted.

Prior to the creation of the Central Contra Costa Sanitary District (CCCSD) in 1946, however, Contra Costa County—located east of San Francisco, CA—was in crisis. A post-war building boom had brought an influx of new residents, most of them relying on septic systems that didn’t take well to the area’s heavy adobe clay soil. With septic tanks overflowing and waterborne diseases such as typhoid becoming a potential threat, health authorities considered the polluted conditions in the county to be among the worst in California.

As a result, the CCCSD was formed as a special district, a sewer system and treatment plants were put in place, and the public received much-needed access to safe water and sanitation.
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“See a Need, Fill a Need”

Norfolk, VA, has dedicated itself to the growth of the Laserfiche community

November 3rd, 2009 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

norfolk-vaNo municipality has dedicated itself to the growth of the Laserfiche community more visibly this year than Norfolk, VA. So much so that the city’s in-house Laserfiche champions have encouraged user interaction by co-founding the Hampton Roads User Group, one of an unprecedented number of user groups that have sprung up across the state in the last two years.

The way W. Alondo McClees, Laserfiche Luminary and leader of the Technology Systems Team for the Norfolk Commissioner of Revenue, explains it, he and his colleagues were just “filling a need” when he and users from three other Virginia municipalities (Fredericksburg, Hanover and Charlottesville) first initiated a statewide Laserfiche user group for their Commissioner of Revenue offices at a 2007 regional conference.
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Greener Pastures

The Town of Brownsburg, IN, uses Laserfiche to deliver better, more cost-efficient service with exponential results

October 14th, 2009 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

brownsburgWhen Wendi Smith accompanied her friend Kristy DeLong from the City of Carmel, IN, to the Laserfiche Conference in Los Angeles last January, she was supposed to be on vacation. But as the Administrative Assistant for the Town of Brownsburg’s Planning and Building Department, Smith started to get her own ideas about the kinds of cost-savings and operational efficiencies Laserfiche could bring to the modest but progressive Brownsburg, a town of just 20,000 that Money Magazine named the 33rd “Best Place to Live in America.”
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Laserfiche Law and Order

For Washington County, MD, and York County, PA, Laserfiche helps turn trial testimony into made-for-TV high drama

September 24th, 2009

george_faderJudges are often not fond of challenging the status quo and paperwork has definitely set a precedent in America’s courthouses. But as electronic document management is moving into courthouses across the country, Laserfiche has been going Hollywood—turning trial testimony into made-for-TV high drama. Full story »

Florida’s Flow Rider

Water is Clay County Utility Authority’s business – and Laserfiche helps it stay afloat no matter what the weather.

September 15th, 2009 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

faq2The Clay County Utility Authority is an independent special district, created by special legislation in Chapter 94-491 of the Florida statutes, that services the water, wastewater, and reclaimed water needs of its service area in Clay County, Florida. “Being a governmental entity, CCUA obtains its revenues from its ratepayers, not from taxpayers,” explains Dave Howell, Records Management Administrator. And when people don’t use as much water – say, in the case of the recent economic slowdown and the resulting lull in home building and new service requests – CCUA acts like any other business: It watches spending and looks for ways to cut costs. Howell says Laserfiche has given him the administrative control to be flexible enough to not only manage CCUA’s exponential paperwork growth, but to monitor productivity, ensure compliance and implement a disaster recovery plan. As a result of this streamlining, efficiency and oversight, CCUA has been able to not only solve its document management issues, Howell says, but has also been able to cross-train existing staff to run more efficiently.
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Cleaning Up the Septic System Permit Process

The West Piedmont, VA, Health District goes high-tech when it comes to digging below ground

August 12th, 2009

va-dept-of-healthThe West Piedmont, VA, Health District is going high-tech when it comes to digging below ground. By using Laserfiche to enable instant access to digging permits, this branch of the Virginia State Health Department has expedited the process of digging wells and septic systems for new real estate development in this scenic slice of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
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Solar Empowered

The City of Sun Prairie shines a light on business practices

August 5th, 2009 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

sun-prairieThe City of Sun Prairie, WI, is the fastest growing city in Wisconsin with 26,000 residents and counting. But serving this rapidly expanding community has meant its municipal offices are spread out between its City Hall and satellite facilities that house various departments, its wastewater treatment and even a public access cable station. The main fire and EMS stations are housed in yet a third location.

So when City Clerk Diane Hermann-Brown says staying on top of Sun Prairie’s mounting paperwork was a city-wide problem, she literally means city-wide. “With all of our various departments that are off-site, it wasn’t just an issue of the time involved to retrieve the documents, but the time and resources involved in sending a clear, clean copy to the requesting party,” she says. “From the start our vision was to have a records management system where people could search, retrieve and print their own copies without ever leaving their work station.”
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Law’s New Order

Laserfiche helps the Daviess County Prosecutor’s Office make room for efficiency

June 30th, 2009 by Melissa HenleyMelissa Henley is a Laserfiche staff member

daviess-countyThe Daviess County, IN, prosecutor’s office, located in the basement of the county courthouse, isn’t the biggest office to start with. But with files stacked from the floor to the ceiling, it was clear that the office, home to three prosecuting attorneys, desperately needed more room.

Thanks to Prosecuting Attorney G. Byron Overton, they’re getting it. Overton and his staff are working with Laserfiche reseller Nancy Mathes of Paper-Lite to scan and store files electronically in Laserfiche. “We’re not going paperless,” Overton says. “We’re going file-less.”
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Online, Not In Line

When Saco, ME, looked to Laserfiche to manage its information, it didn’t have a problem, it had a vision

June 10th, 2009 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

saco-logoMaine’s state motto is “The Way Life Should Be,” and the City of Saco’s could well be “The Way Laserfiche Should Be.” Thanks to a commitment to user education and establishing an in-house Laserfiche administrator, city employees in every department have embraced an ecological and economical paradigm shift in how the city does business and offers services.

So much so that in just three years, Saco has set a standard for e-government so high that its regional neighbors are beginning to look into it as well.

So why has Saco been so successful? For starters, when City Administrator Rick Michaud and Saco’s IT staff looked into document management three years ago, they didn’t have a problem, they had a plan.
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