Client Profile: Liberty County, Texas
- Industry: County
- Number of Employees: 350
- Population: 91,628
- Tyler Client Since: 2018
- Tyler Products Used: Records Management, Enterprise Justice [powered by Odyssey®], Municipal Jury Manager [powered by Incode Jury®], ERP Pro [powered by Incode®], Content Manager, Meeting Manager
Challenges
Rapid growth within a county can shed light on processes that need optimizing. During her first term as county clerk of Liberty County, Texas, Lee Chambers began identifying improvements to prepare for the county’s future growth. With Liberty County sitting at around 100,000 residents and steadily increasing, the gaps that needed filling became apparent. The first order of business was to refine the County Commissioners Court minutes management process.
The county’s previous method for minutes management could easily lead to mistakes. “We were literally doing it by hand,” said Chambers. “[The County Judge’s Office] would hand the agenda to me on paper, and I’d have to re-enter it on the word processor and turn it into minutes. It wasn’t functional at all.”
Additionally, there is a law in Texas mandating communities with populations of more than 125,000 to video record Commissioners Court sessions and make the videos available to residents online. Chambers explained, “We are just getting slammed with growth activity, and we’ve got to be ready for it.” She went on to say, “We want to get into the habit of posting videos online, so that when we cross that population threshold, we’re up and running.”
Solution
Finding a system that could work hand in hand with existing software and deliver results was at the top of Chambers’ priority list. After getting a glimpse of the Meeting Manager solution from Tyler Technologies, she knew it was the solution they had been searching for.
“While we were being given a demonstration of Tyler’s Records Management, Tyler presented Meeting Manager and described everything it could do,” Chambers said. “And I thought ‘Oh my gosh, that sounds perfect, and it’ll integrate with our current solutions. Love it.’”
The ease of implementation and responsiveness of the development team truly stood out to Chambers. “The product development team has been really great. We’ll be rolling out new functionality, and maybe a little bug will pop up. I’ll get in touch with support, and they help right away,” said Chambers.
Results
Meeting Manager has propelled Liberty County into the digital age, optimizing the county’s workflow. “Auto text has been a game changer,” said Chambers. “It ties all three pieces together, so when you identify a Council meeting date, the agenda, minutes with documentation, and video are all there together.”
This software has also allowed citizens to find needed information promptly. Chambers explained, “Now, when people come in to fill out a Doing Business As (DBA) form, they’re typing it directly into Records Management. We’re doing more digitally. Otherwise, we couldn’t handle the volume.”
“We didn’t really have a minutes system. Everything was being generated out of Microsoft® Word, and it was time-consuming. It used to take hours after the meeting to publish the minutes. And right now, unless something unusual happened during the meeting, by the time the meeting is over, the minutes are done.”
Lee Chambers
County Clerk
The county can now record Commissioners Court sessions, offering the transparency required by the Texas mandate — a swiftly approaching requirement. Chambers commented, “The minute we post a meeting on a bulletin board outside the courthouse, we also post it on Meeting Manager and the public can see it. So, it’s becoming much easier for people to track what we’re doing.”
The ability to integrate Meeting Manager with their current systems has also proven to be a crucial asset. Chambers noted, “The county has experienced quite a reduction in requests for information. Uploading the historical content and making it available online really reduces requests and staff interactions.”