Case Studies > Ivins City
Ivins City Improves Government Efficiency
Granicus provides digital audio streaming and minutes automation tools to streamline the public meeting process
Problem
Ivins City struggled with outdated meeting tools that required the City Recorder to spend weeks creating the minutes, fast-forwarding and rewinding dubbed audio tapes, to ensure an accurate transcription of the meeting.
Solution
Deploying modern meeting tools, Ivins was able to automate the public meeting process and produce minutes that were hyperlinked to a digital audio recording of the meeting and indexed by agenda item.
Benefits
Ivins’ City Recorder was able to complete meeting minutes in half the time it took her prior to using Granicus. Ivins not only increased staff efficiency and saved time; they also cut back on administrative costs and the use of supplies.
Client Profile
Agency Type: Local Government
Population: 8,500
Client Since: 2008
Ivins City is located in southwestern Utah and is surrounded by fifteen hundred foot-high red sandstone cliffs, giving credence to the City’s motto “Our Home Beneath the Big Red Mountain”.
Ivins previously used outdated meeting tools that slowed staff processes and created hours of additional work
Ivins City followed a cumbersome public meeting process. The City Recorder, Kari Jimenez, was tasked with taking, maintaining, and modifying the meeting minutes. She created detailed, nearly verbatim minutes and spent hours reviewing, editing, and finalizing the minutes.
During the meeting, Jimenez took notes on a computer and used a tape recorder to capture the meeting in its entirety. To create a full transcript of the minutes, Jimenez would wade through hours of tape to ensure accuracy. With out-dated audio recording equipment, she was forced to fast forward, rewind, and listen to the hearing repeatedly to locate a specific topic. Meetings were recorded on multiple tapes that produced poor sound quality, adding additional levels of complexity to her workflow.
Jimenez’ completed minutes would be up to 30 pages long, and it could take her a week just to type them up. With two meetings a month, Jimenez found her time consumed with preparing minutes from Council meetings. Additionally, if there was a request for a meeting’s transcription and recording, Jimenez had to dub new tapes, which took as much time to replicate as they did to record.
With her combined processes, it took Jimenez an average of two weeks to complete the minutes from a single meeting. Almost all aspects of the meeting process were antiquated and time-consuming. Jimenez needed to improve her minutes processes and make more efficient use of her time.
Ivins automated its minutes preparation and established a modern meeting workflow
Ivins went live with streaming of council meetings in 2008, becoming the first municipality in the state of Utah to use Granicus’ technology. Ivins’ solution included audio streaming of meetings on-demand through their website, which allowed for convenient, public access. The City also implemented Granicus’ public meeting tools to enhance their meeting procedures and create an automated workflow.
Granicus’ live meeting tools allowed the City Recorder to index and record actions during the meeting including motions, notes, and votes. By time-stamping actions, Jimenez produced a document, cross-linked with the audio recording of the meeting, directing the viewer to a full transcript of what was said. Jimenez’ replaced her detailed, verbatim minutes with an action minutes format since an audio digital audio transcription was available. Action minutes allowed Jimenez to record the actions taken in the meeting rather than a complete, detailed transcript of each speaker’s comments.
During the meeting, Jimenez was able to create index points for specific agenda items. By indexing agenda items during the meeting, Jimenez created “jump-to” points, simplifying her post-meeting process. She no longer had to fast-forward and rewind tapes to find a specific item, the entire meeting had been digitally captured and organized by agenda items.
The end result was a rich, digital media recording of the meeting. The completed minutes allowed Jimenez and the public audience to navigate the audio recording using jump-to points to skip to a particular item, click on hyperlinked text within the agenda to hear that portion of the meeting, and search archives using keywords.
Using automated meeting tools, Ivins can index items, record motions and votes, and add notes during the meeting all in one, consolidated location.
Ivins reduced staff time spent on creating meeting minutes
Jimenez discovered that in using Granicus she was able to streamline and more effectively manage her meeting and minutes-taking processes. She transitioned from nearly verbatim minutes to an action minutes format, saving her time during and after the meeting. Action minutes shortened the transcription and made her time spent completing minutes a much simpler process. The combination of action minutes and digital audio streaming allowed Jimenez to significantly reduce her time dedicated to producing a fully transcript of the meeting.
Prior to Granicus, it took up to two weeks to finalize meeting minutes, now minutes can generally be created within two days. Jimenez has been able to maximize her time before, during and after the meeting and increase her overall productivity to focus time on priority issues. In reducing staff time spent on minutes by no longer producing verbatim transcripts of meetings, the City was able to reduce administrative costs associated to paper consumption and dubbing tapes.
Ivins not only improved staff efficiency, but provided the public with easily accessible, quality, digital recordings of City Council and Planning Commission meetings.