Cities finding new ways to go paperless, rely on document management
With advanced technology becoming more widely available, more cities are turning to various methods of reducing their paper consumption. Instead of relying on older, less efficient methods, they're focusing on digital document management and other tools for boosting efficiency.
There are many ways in which these types of platforms can be put to use by municipalities, including an effort in Santa Fe to digitize tracking of employee hours, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. And while the new systems – currently implemented for every city department except the police and fire departments – may be primarily designed to help make tracking of hours more efficient, it has other benefits as well. These include more efficient scheduling of city workers and tracking assignments that help to ensure greater efficiency.
Meanwhile, the police and fire departments will soon start using their own, more advanced staffing software to accomplish the same goals. Until the new system was implemented, every city department relied solely upon paper-based time sheets and the like. All these systems rely on automated workflows and other document management applications that ensure no data goes missing.
"It was a paper process, largely, that has been done away with," City Manager Brian Snyder told the newspaper. "It's all electronic now."
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, recently tried to push their community in a similar direction, filing petitions that would create paperless billing for municipal services and fees, according to the Fitchburg Sentinel and Enterprise. Currently, the plan would be to allow paperless documentation for retirement statements (for town employees both current and retired), property taxes, and billing for water and sewer use.
The goal would be to help the city reduce its expenditures on postage as well as mailing and printing materials. However, some city officials say the transition could be complicated by certain legal requirements that could create hurdles for the process. Already, the city allows online payments for property taxes, excise taxes, water and sewer bills, parking tickets, and permitting.
The benefits of adopting document management platforms that involve everything from online services to remote capture is that they empower city workers to more effectively upload necessary documents from just about any location.
