How this bustling city has paved the way in records request process innovation

A River Between Them

The Sacramento River divides the City of Sacramento from their fast growing neighbor of West Sacramento. Home to over 50,000 residents and climbing, the city has seen a renaissance in recent years as the city has transformed themselves into a hub for economic development, diversity and innovation. As their population has grown, so has the number of FOIA requests the city receives.‍

From Manual to Automatic

The captain of the West Sacramento PRA ship is City Clerk Kryss Rankin. Prior to using NextRequest, all management of the City’s PRAs had been done manually through email, paper requests, paper records, or even meetings with involved staff. The City was struggling with providing records to requesters, keeping track of which staff performed certain tasks related to the request, and ensuring all deadlines were met. Something had to change. Knowing that manual efforts were no longer efficient, the City brought on NextRequest in ’15 and has since seen widespread adoption largely due to the “intuitive interface” of the software that Kryss cites as a favorite feature.‍

Alleviating Strains

Has the use of NextRequest freed up time for the City? According to Kryss, “We literally would not be able to keep up without NextRequest. Using a manual system is no longer an option for us.“ As the City’s requests have almost tripled in recent years, their use of NextRequest has helped alleviate the strain on staff and resources while streamlining the City’s workflows and organization of PRAs.‍

VISIT: https://westsacramento.nextrequest.com/