Legistar > Success Stories > King County, WA
County Maximizes Public Access and Saves Thousands
in Staff Time
King County, WA is one of the largest counties in the country in terms of land area (nearly twice that of the entire state of Rhode Island). Since 2000, they have relied on Granicus and Legistar to stay connected with their citizens while automating essential legislative workflows. Throughout this time, King County has successfully transformed their legislative process. It now requires less staff, time, and effort to introduce and process legislation. From these improvements, they have saved up to $385,000 in cumulative legislative costs.
- Collecting agenda items from committees and creating meeting agendas consumed 14-20 hours per week—it was entirely manual with a lot of duplication of effort.
- Checking the accuracy of meeting agendas was very cumbersome; staff had to go through many review cycles before completion which prolonged turn-around time.
- Compiling and delivering copies of staff reports or fiscal notes was all done by hand.
- Encouraging citizens to attend public hearings was difficult because many live far away from Seattle where these meetings are held.
- As an oversight body, reports constantly need to be filed with the County which requires a lot of extra printing, collating, and organizational efforts.
We’ve been able to save up to 19 hours per week on our agenda process which translates into real dollar savings for our county. 
Anne Noris,
Clerk of the Council
King County, WA
- They converted their entire agenda and minutes process to a digital workflow that’s completely automated and easy to manage.
- All records and reports are archived centrally within Legistar and are easy to locate and track through a unique file number.
- Legislative information only needs to be entered once as opposed to dozens and dozens of times.
- They implemented a keyword searchable web-portal of legislative documents video streaming on their website.
- Public hearing videos are indexed by agenda item. This ensures all legislative information is consolidated and easy to access both by the public and staff.
- Reduction in staff time for agenda preparation from 20 hours to 1 hour.
- Approximately $35,000 in savings per year in staff time and paper costs, which has resulted in roughly $385,000 in cumulative legislative savings.
- Citizen engagement levels are higher because access to legislative information is easier than ever before—they can watch council meetings and follow the latest decisions instantly.
- Accuracy and timeliness of legislative information is drastically improved because everything is being processed in real-time following business rules that were configured to meet their exact specifications.
