State and Local Government Archive

Putting Boulder City on Easy Street

Document management’s no crapshoot for Nevada’s biggest small town

November 4th, 2008 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

Compared to other cities in Nevada, Boulder City is something of an anomaly. Unlike nearby Las Vegas and the rest of Henderson County, BC is relatively quaint, with a population of just 15,000.

“We’re close to Las Vegas, we’re close to the Hoover Dam, but we’re surrounded by 200 miles of land. It’s like a buffer around us,” explains City Clerk Pamella Malmstrom. “Clark County has been one the fastest growing counties in the country. We’ve taken steps to not grow so rapidly.”

But even as modest Boulder City seems buffered from the noisy neon of its neighbors, it still faced the same information management concerns as every other city in the state. Especially since late 2007, when the state legislature passed a resolution mandating that all government agencies in Nevada be able to honor requests for public records within five working days. Full story »

Efficiency, Effectiveness and Excellence

Laserfiche goes to school in British Columbia

October 28th, 2008 by Melissa HenleyMelissa Henley is a Laserfiche staff member

One of the reasons Scot Fraser and the IKON Office Solutions team chose to focus on implementing digital document management solutions in British Columbia’s school districts was out of loyalty to the teachers who helped them succeed.

“I lived in the Kootenay-Columbia area from grade six until high school,” says Fraser, now Enterprise Solutions Manager at IKON. “I attended five schools in the area. The teachers and the school system were great. My most influential teacher was my grade seven teacher, Mr. Truant. I owe him a lot. I wish I could see him again and thank him for helping me immensely through a difficult year where I attended three different schools.”

This devotion to supporting educators led IKON to help school districts throughout British Columbia digitize their paper records and speed their workflows. School District No. 20 (SD20), located in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, serves a number of communities throughout the province. Thanks to IKON, it’s also discovered the benefits of Laserfiche.
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The Wright Stuff

Wayne Wright, city historian of Glens Falls, NY, uses Laserfiche to manage valuable historical records – and increase efficiency city-wide

October 14th, 2008

Visionaries are not always thinking about the future as they leave the past behind. Sometimes, they are just looking to make a change.

That was Glens Falls Records Management Tech/City Historian Wayne Wright 11 years ago. When he thumbed through a Laserfiche brochure back then, he was thinking about the bulky bound volumes of birth, death and marriage certificates the City Clerk’s office staff wrestled with on top of the copier thirty to forty times each day. A decade later Laserfiche is helping most every aspect of Glens Falls government run more efficiently, largely through the single-minded effort of an administrator who just wanted to make a change.

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Badge to the Future

Elk River, MN’s hi-tech cop shop is tops for making greener traffic stops

October 10th, 2008 by Hobey EchlinHobey Echlin is a Laserfiche staff member

“Police departments in general create a lot of paperwork and kill a lot of trees,” says Jeffrey Beahen, Chief of Police for Elk River, MN.

But Beahen’s department is saving trees and racking up awards—including one for Excellence in Innovation in Information Technology from the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) just this year.

jeff beahen“Our peers are John Hopkins University, the San Diego Police Department, the Canadian Research Center and the Dutch National Police,” Beahen notes proudly. “And little old Elk River is up on the porch with the big dogs.”

Elk Rapids, home to 24,000 and located on the outskirts of greater Minneapolis, got up on that porch thanks to Beahen’s vision of giving his officers every technological advantage available—with Laserfiche playing a vital role in both that vision and that advantage.

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Keen to Go Green

In Okotoks, AB, Laserfiche protects a historic past and provides for a sustainable future

October 7th, 2008 by Melissa HenleyMelissa Henley is a Laserfiche staff member

Okotoks logoNestled along the Sheep River Valley in the heart of the Alberta Foothills, the town of Okotoks, AB, is the second-fastest growing community in Canada, with a 46 percent growth rate since 2001.

According to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Okotoks “can fairly call itself the greenest community in Canada, maybe the world,” as it is one of the first municipalities to establish growth targets balancing infrastructure development and environmental conservation. And true to its motto of “Historic Past, Sustainable Future,” Okotoks has received national and international recognition for its environmental initiatives, so it’s no surprise they turned to Laserfiche to reduce paper consumption. Full story »

Paperless Meetings are the Wave of the Future

New Jersey communities are using Laserfiche to eliminate paper and put more information in the hands of decision makers at public government meetings

October 3rd, 2008

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.

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Fire Department a Hot Spot for Document Management

In Westminster, MA, the fire department uses Laserfiche as the foundation for innovation

September 19th, 2008

Westminster, MA Fire DepartmentIn Westminster, MA, the fire department uses Laserfiche primarily to convert its retention of documents from paper to digital storage. For Fire Chief Brenton Macaloney, installing Laserfiche proved vital to saving time, money and headaches when the town suffered a total loss of electronic data.

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Document management a Burj-ening success

The City of Dubai scans a million pages into Laserfiche

September 8th, 2008

Palm tree-shaped islands. The world’s tallest building. An indoor ski resort. In the past 30 years, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has quickly blossomed from a regional business center to a global destination. But with 30 years of development comes 30 years of paperwork to manage—which is why Dubai chose a scalable, easy-to-implement Laserfiche solution to convert all of the city’s paper into digital format. Now, an extensive back-file conversion project is under way, with Laserfiche poised to take over day-forward scanning as well. Full story »

Stuck on Laserfiche

In Goodyear, AZ, Laserfiche powers city-wide access to information—and streamlines agenda management

August 6th, 2008 by Melissa HenleyMelissa Henley is a Laserfiche staff member

goodyear, arizona sealIn many cities, staff have to impose on the city clerk’s office whenever they need to consult a report, contract or other municipal document. But thanks to Laserfiche, staff throughout the City of Goodyear, AZ, can instantly access these items online, which helps them work more efficiently—and frees staff in the clerk’s office to spend more time helping the public.

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Document Management Goes Public

Riverside, CA, Makes Laserfiche a Citywide Standard

July 9th, 2008

Riverside, CA, Laserfiche ECM
With over 300,000 residents, Riverside, CA, is already one of California’s largest cities, and with each new tally on the census taker’s clipboard comes more information for city staff to manage. So it’s only logical that Riverside is expanding its Laserfiche enterprise content management system to keep pace. Thanks to the drive of the city clerk, what began as a means for one department to find information more quickly has now become the technology platform for citywide business process improvements, cost savings and better public service. Full story »

To Efficiency and Beyond

“I really anticipate that, within five years, Laserfiche will become as widely-used as e-mail.”

June 11th, 2008

gaston county, NCAs the winner of a 2007 InfoWorld 100 Award for IT innovation, Gaston County, NC, is a shining example of the way technology can help move government forward. So when it came time to implement a digital document management solution, it’s no surprise that CIO Brandon Jackson sought the system that could best promote broader-ranging citizen services. As part of the award-winning initiative, a rapidly-growing Laserfiche® system now provides solid technological support for Gaston County’s service mission. Full story »

Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission

Digital Initiatives Enable Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission to be More Effective

May 27th, 2008

Executive Director John Contino of the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission (www.ethics.state.pa.us) first turned to document management to eliminate the need to bring in temporary help to number the pages of legal files for major court cases.

From that starting point, document management has become an integral part of Commission operations, adding significantly to its public education and information capabilities and becoming a valued productivity tool. Full story »

Lubbock County, TX

May 27th, 2008

The voters in Lubbock County, Texas, didn’t have any voting nightmares to deal with this past election. They had Laserfiche to keep voting confusion at bay.

One of the largest issues concerns ineligible voters coming to the polls. To keep voting fair and above board, it’s imperative to keep track of who can vote and who cannot, especially in elections where the difference between winning and losing could come down to just a few votes. Full story »

Case Closed

Laserfiche helps the Kern County, CA, Superior Court manage its case files

May 23rd, 2008 by Melissa HenleyMelissa Henley is a Laserfiche staff member

The majority of legal cases in California begin in one of the state’s 58 superior courts. With facilities in more than 450 locations, the superior courts hear both civil and criminal cases, as well as family, probate and juvenile cases. The superior courts make up the largest part of California’s judicial system—which is itself the largest in the United States. Full story »

Tipping the Scales of Justice

Laserfiche helps the York County, PA, Clerk of Courts Office streamline operations

May 23rd, 2008 by Melissa HenleyMelissa Henley is a Laserfiche staff member

Thinking of a traditional courthouse records room might conjure up images of file cabinets overflowing with folders, but that’s not how it works in York County, PA, where staff have used technology to streamline the thousands of cases that pass through the court system each year. Full story »