PORT ANGELES — Clallam County has identified software that would help citizens and staff keep track of financial performance and other public information.
County commissioners are considering a three-year agreement with OpenGov, a Silicon Valley-based technology firm that helps local governments consolidate financial and non-financial data into a user-friendly platform to improve transparency and strategic planning.
The three commissioners Monday directed County Administrator Jim Jones to bring back a proposed agreement with OpenGov that includes the cost of a budget module.
“It does sound like you’ve got consensus to move ahead with that,” Board Chairman Mark Ozias told Jones.
The cost of the OpenGov Smart Government financial performance system without a budget module would be $10,925 per year with a one-time fee of $2,700.
“I think we’ll get that much value out of it in our first budget year,” Jones said in the commissioners’ work session.
Last year, commissioners asked Jones to look for vendors that could help the county improve the way it disseminates financial data and other public information.
Jones recommended OpenGov, which is being used by Clark and Thurston counties, and Olympia and Redmond.
“We’re actually seeing a bit of a surge in the state,” said Brendan Carry of OpenGov, who flew in from San Francisco to attend the work session as well as a launch in Redmond.
Jones said he liked Thurston County’s application of the software.
“It’s really impressive,” Jones said.
“You just go to their website, click on it and you can get data you just can’t believe.”
Clallam County keeps detailed financial information on its website “but you can’t search for it very easily,” Jones said.
The OpenGov software has a search function that allows a user to review transactions by vendor, date or amount of money, Jones said.
“You can search any way you could conceivably think of to look for a piece of information that you wanted to have, as long as it was loaded in the system, and it loads everything,” Jones said.
The information is presented in a way that is easy for the public and staff to understand, Carry said.
Alice Hoffman, Sheriff’s Office chief civil deputy, said the software would be a “great tool” for monitoring budgets and processing public records requests.
The Public Records Act has been modified so that it is now sufficient to direct someone requesting public documents to a website, Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Alvarez said.
In other discussion from the nearly four-hour work session, commissioners reviewed proposed changes to the county’s public records policy.
Commissioners next Tuesday are expected to call for a public hearing on the policy changes and a new ordinance creating a Public Records Access chapter in the county code.
“The ordinance is kind of putting this in place and the policy is how we do it,” said Trish Holden, county public records officer.
A work group composed of Holden, Ozias, Jones, Alvarez, Hoffman, Treasurer Selinda Barkhuis and Human Resources Civil Investigator Tom Reyes helped develop the new policy.
“When we delved into this last year, we were trying to figure out what variety of things do we need to do as an organization to make sure that we’re doing as good a job as possible at making information available, fulfilling requests, minimizing time and minimizing our liability if we mess up,” Ozias said.
County officials have been “making great progress” on getting a better handle on paper and electronic records, Ozias said.
“This [policy] is the other big peice that we need to accomplish,” Ozias said.
Substantive changes in the new policy include definitions, the designation and responsibilities of the public records officer and the designation and responsibilities of public records specialists in each department, Holden said.
“I think the totality of what this group has accomplished, or is close to accomplishing, is going to make a big difference moving forward and provide a lot of clarity for staff,” Ozias said.
Commissioners postponed a scheduled discussion on the county’s structural budget deficit because Ozias had an afternoon meeting scheduled with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
