The Problem
Transparency in government continues to be a concern and growing topic for both citizens and government agencies. Employee turnover and the desire to improve transparency to their citizens led the City of Naples (FL) to find a better solution to their current process for open records requests (often known as FOIA requests).
The employee who developed an in-house solution retired. With limited resources available, the current solution was only available for the Clerk’s office and provided limited stability and functionality. It was not a tracking or reminder solution, simply a way to look up the history of a request.
Many departments of the City receive records requests. The Police and Building departments are located at separate locations from the Clerk’s office. The lack of consistency contributed to the struggles of managing requests throughout the City. City Clerk Pat Rambosk says, “We needed a program that would act as a tracking system, allow online submissions and meet the needs of the entire City, not just the Clerk’s office.”
“We had the highest level of confidence that MCCi could help us stay in compliance with FOIA and state laws.”
The Solution
Shortly after the search began for the perfect solution, MCCi launched JustFOIA, developed by and for government agencies. JustFOIA included all the key features they needed, as well as a few they did not think of and best of all – it is a cloud-based solution, saving time on their already limited resources.
“The City of Naples has been a Municode client, MCCi’s parent company, for more than 30 years. We had the highest level of confidence that MCCi could help us stay in compliance with FOIA and state laws. All the departments of the City have enjoyed using JustFOIA to streamline the request process.”
Since becoming City Clerk in June 2012, Pat spearheaded the project to promote a transparent community culture through the City’s website. As part of this project, JustFOIA contributed greatly to the City receiving an A+ rating as one of the Top Transparency Websites in 2014 by the Lucy Burns Institute.
For more information on the JustFOIA solution, visit www.JustFOIA.com
