After the recession, the City of Long Beach turned to technology to cut costs — and create innovative ways to improve citizen services. To this end, it produced a three-pronged service delivery plan that would earn it numerous honors as a top ten digital city in the U.S.:

With a shared understanding of the value new technology could bring to Long Beach, the city tasked its technology services department to spearhead a citywide information management overhaul.

Long Beach has worked hard to consolidate technology functions while still providing flexibility for departments to run efficiently. For example, in 2009, Long Beach replaced its departmental IBM FileNet system with a Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) system that could be used citywide.

The city’s ongoing strategy to consolidate services and decrease costs has paid dividends. By implementing Laserfiche, it has cut annual ECM support costs by 50%.

Other cost-saving IT consolidation efforts include:

In April 2011, the Long Beach City Council adopted an open government policy identifying transparency as a core function of local government, which has become a top priority for staff and citizens alike.

“Long Beach is dedicated to fostering open, transparent government where everyone in our community can easily participate and engage,” explains City Clerk Larry Herrera. Herrera further notes that the City Clerk’s office uses Laserfiche to help deliver improved, cost-effective service. “Previously, we needed 28 people to answer citizen questions quickly and accurately. Today, with a staff of 17, our customer service is better than ever before.”

As more and more records are added to Laserfiche, information access improves and storage costs decrease. The document types stored in Laserfiche include:

Long Beach has made all city contracts executed as of 2011 available to the public through Laserfiche WebLink, a read-only public portal. With 24/7 online viewing access, the city simplifies citizen information access and saves time for both requestors and city staff.

Other departments that have worked to digitize paper processes include:

For example, Long Beach began streamlining accounting processes by integrating Laserfiche with its business intelligence (BI) system. This integration streamlines expense research by making images of invoices available to authorized users through the BI interface.

Long Beach citizens, leadership and staff have shown full support for its Laserfiche initiative.

As a result of its collaboration between city leadership, staff and citizens, Long Beach has used technology to position itself as a leader for the future.