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2 <br />Agenda Automation Options <br />This document provides information on three potential options for agenda automation <br />and a section on hardware options. The project team investigating agenda automation <br />technologies (representatives from Information Technologies, the County Manager's. <br />Office and the Clerk to the Board of County Commissioners' Office) evalua#ed several <br />offerings and came away concluding only two products both met minimum requirements <br />and met or exceeded the agenda product currently produced manually. Each of those two <br />offerings is listed below inoptions-2 and 3. <br />Option 1: Leverage Status C~uo <br />This option would involve the Board of Commissioners using. existing County issued <br />laptops (or personal laptops, if preferred) to review pdf files of meeting agendas, as <br />they're being prepared today. IT would ensure all laptops haves versions of Adobe <br />Acrobat which would allow Board members to make individual annotations to those f les. <br />Agendas would be produced as they are now, with the Manager's Office managing the <br />creation and approval process -for individual agenda items. The ultimate delivery of <br />agenda packets to the Commissioners and staff would be in electronic format, as pdf files <br />on the County Internet site, as is currently done. <br />This option requires no additional investment. It has advantages of paper reduction and <br />overall reduction of cost to the County in terms of printing and delivery costs. <br />The disadvantage of this option is that is does not confer any efficiency gains in the <br />production of the agenda packet <br />Option 2: Automated Agenda via Granicus's Legistar <br />This option would be a solution automating the agenda process, from production, to <br />review, to distribution, to archiving, using Granicus's Legistar product. <br />This product, in use in several North Carolina counties and municipalities, .provides <br />mechanisms for template based abstract authoring, workflow processing for review, <br />automated agenda assembly and publishing. The product has been researched by the <br />evaluation team, as well as a group of staff members who frequently author abstracts. <br />The Legistar product met the requirements set for the by the evaluation team and was <br />deemed viable by the authoring group. <br />It should be noted the authoring group believed the Granicus product, while adequate for <br />their needs, was somewhat cumbersome to use and not the preferred choice for authoring <br />and production. <br />Estimated implementation costs for Gra.nicus' Legistar: $90,000. <br />