Calculating the ROI of Agenda and Meeting Management Software

Before city council meetings are called to order, before votes are cast, before minutes are recorded, complex processes unfold behind the scenes. Municipal clerks sit at the center of it all, tasked with coordinating agendas, assembling packets, and supporting legal compliance.

With limited resources and rising expectations for accessibility and efficiency, clerks are increasingly stretched thin.

That’s where agenda and meeting management software comes in—not just as a convenience, but as a strategic investment. This blog explores the return on investment of these digital tools and how they help local governments save time, reduce costs, and improve service to their communities.

Answer a few questions to learn how much a digital transformation can help you save.

Before Agenda and Meeting Management Software: Manual Processes and Daily Headaches

Prior to implementing our Agenda and Meeting Management software, municipalities report contending with a host of daily challenges that slow them down, limit transparency, and make creating and sharing agendas an often overwhelming chore.

Here’s what some customers had to say about their current state before making the transition to tech-enabled operations.

“We had a lot of forms that were on our on our city website for people if they wanted to request trash service or for a stop sign to be added, but those forms would go off into a group or an individual’s e-mail address that may or may not still be valid. On the resident’s end, a lot of those probably went off into a black hole and that affected trust.”

– Clint Miller, GIS Supervisor, City of Lawrence, KS

“Our staff faced a steep learning curve with our old system, taking up to 2 to-3 weeks to become proficient, which significantly impeded our productivity.”

– Kathy Lind, Facilities Manager, Carbon Valley Parks and Recreation District

“Collecting documents from the various departments to put into our packets and post to the website for residents to access was a time-consuming and challenging process.”

– Dallas Schroeder, County Clerk, Elbert County, CO

After Agenda and Meeting Management Software: Dependable ROI

With agenda and meeting management solutions in place, governments around the country are seeing measurable ROI—not just in terms of time and money saved, but also through increased efficiency, accountability, and transparency. Here’s a closer look at some of the specific benefits CivicPlus® customers are currently experiencing.

Reducing Agenda and Packet Prep Time

For many municipalities, preparing agendas and packets is a multi-day, multi-department process. Without digital tools, it often means collecting numerous documents, formatting and reformatting, tracking down missing approvals, and physically distributing completed packets.

Automation is changing expectations and results.

The city of Escondido, CA, for example, estimates that they’ve reduced the time spent on agenda preparation by 40 to 50%.

Elsewhere, public servants in Wilmar, MN say they’ve saved eight hours each week thanks to automated agenda prep.

Improving Minutes Preparation Efficiency

Traditionally, recording meeting minutes has required hours of transcription, review, and reformatting.

With modern meeting management platforms, however, minutes can be drafted in real time, with the help of AI tools. Turnaround time is accelerated without sacrificing accuracy. Staff can quickly locate decisions, motions, and actions to confirm the public record accurately reflects what took place.

“Beforehand, we were doing our minutes and our agendas just in a PDF and uploading them. Now, you can go and deep dive into those agendas more by searching. Everything is searchable by keyword. I think for people who want to dive that deep, it now makes it easier for them.”

– Joel Gillie, Public Affairs Director, Wayne County, NC

Centralizing Documents and Data

Clerks frequently note that their legacy processes for preparing agendas and meeting minutes are fragmented.

Documents come from multiple sources, staff members waste time reconciling materials from disparate departments, and everyone gets saddled with plenty of unnecessary rework as they try to track down the right versions of the right documents.

A unified system brings agenda items, supporting documents, minutes, and recordings into a single searchable platform.

Boosting Internal and External Transparency

Transparency is not just a goal for local governments—it’s a public expectation. Agenda and meeting management platforms support transparency by making materials such as agendas, packets, minutes, and recordings accessible to both internal staff and the public. Staff gain a clear audit trail of decisions and approvals, while residents benefit from easier access to meeting information. The result is increased trust and stronger resident relationships.

“For us, when we talk about trust and transparency, we include Agenda and Meeting Management. Beforehand, we were doing our minutes and our agendas just in a PDF and uploading them. Now, you can go and deep dive into those agendas more by searching. Everything is searchable by keyword. I think for people who want to dive that deep, it now makes it easier for them.”

– Joel Gillie, Public Affairs Director, Wayne County, NC

Cutting Annual Costs

Operational savings are a key piece of the ROI of agenda and meeting management software. By shifting from manual to digital workflows, municipalities reduce costs tied to printing, mailing, storage, and distribution.

The town of Howey-in-the-Hills, FL predicts they’re saving more than $25,000 each year on printing costs alone.

Imperial Beach, CA is another satisfied CivicPlus customer who reports significant savings thanks to the shift away from paper-bound agenda and meeting preparation.

Calculate the ROI of Agenda and Meeting Management Software

CivicPlus Agenda and Meeting Management streamlines meeting and agenda management with a purpose-built platform designed for clerks.

Ready to learn what implementing Agenda and Meeting Management can mean for your municipality? Answer a few questions about your current process and our ROI calculator will estimate how much time and money a digital transformation could save you. Try it out.