Naples Provides A+ Transparency

Transparency in government continues to be a concern and a growing topic for both citizens and government agencies. Employee turnover and the desire to improve transparency to their citizens is what led the City of Naples, FL, to find a better solution to their current process for open records 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 reside at separate locations from the Clerk’s office. The lack of consistency contributed to the struggles of managing submissions throughout the City.

City Clerk Pat Rambosk said, “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.”

Shortly after the search began for the perfect solution, MCCi launched JustFOIA, developed by and for government agencies. JustFOIA included all 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 on their already limited resources.

She drove Tallahassee to meet with Donny and the JustFOIA team, a decision she calls “one of my finest moments.”

“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 significantly to the City receiving an A+ rating as one of the Top Transparency Websites in 2014 by the Lucy Burns Institute.