How the Growing City of Chino, California Modernized its Records Request Process

Farms to Families and Paper to Digital Records Requests

The City of Chino, California, is on the west end of San Bernardino County, just outside of Los Angeles. Chino has an agricultural history, and while some dairies in the city are still operational, the agricultural land is now mainly used in industrial, commercial, and residential developments.

A year ago, Chino was tracking all records requests manually in a spreadsheet and marking due dates on a physical calendar. With complications like duplicate requests being sent to different departments, records were hard to keep track of, and staff had great difficulty staying on top of follow-ups and deadlines.

As the management analyst who acts as one of Chino’s gatekeepers for all external requesters, Jack Morgan knew how vital it was to produce requested documents for the public in a timely fashion. After a year of searching for a records request software solution, he came across NextRequest.

Implementing the NextRequest Records Request Solution

On September 24, 2020, the city of Chino began using NextRequest to process all of its public records requests. Their staff loves how NextRequest makes fluctuations and upticks manageable and how the system negates the need for some requests to be filed in the first place. “[The] publishing feature has been useful. It has served as a repository that we are hoping drives down the number of future requests received.” Morgan also appreciates how his office now has more free time, saying, “NextRequest combined with additional support from one of our part-time staff members has definitely allowed us more time to attend to [other] projects.”