West Sacramento, CA, Partners with CivicPlus® and Paves the Way in Records Request Process Innovation
Keys to Project:
Automated records request management workflows
City:
West Sacramento, CAPopulation:
53,637Products:
Challenge:
Management of the City’s Public Records Act (PRA) processes was manual and used email, paper requests, paper records, and meetings with involved staff
Solution:
The City implemented NextRequest, now part of the CivicPlus Civic Experience Platform
Result:
As City’s requests have almost tripled in recent years, its use of NextRequest has helped alleviate the strain on staff and resources while streamlining the City’s workflows and organization of PRAs.
We do business with lots of vendors and none compare to the service and response time of [CivicPlus] staff.
Kryss Rankin
City Clerk
A River Between Them
The Sacramento River divides the City of Sacramento from its fast-growing neighbor of West Sacramento. Home to over 50,000 residents and climbing, the City has seen a renaissance in recent years as it has transformed itself into a hub for economic development, diversity, and innovation. As its population has grown, so has the number of FOIA requests the city receives.
From Manual to Automatic
The Captain of the West Sacramento Public Records Act (PRA) ship is City Clerk Kryss Rankin. Before using NextRequest (now part of CivicPlus), all management of the City’s PRAs had been done manually through email, paper requests, paper records, or meetings with involved staff. The City struggled with providing records to requesters, keeping track of which staff performed specific 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 implemented NextRequest in 2015 and has since seen widespread adoption mainly 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, its use of NextRequest has helped alleviate the strain on staff and resources while streamlining the City’s workflows and organization of PRAs.