The Executive Operations Committee approved a new process to capture and act on requests to attend special meetings using a portal-generated attendance report and back-end tracking IDs.

Staff demonstrated a spreadsheet view that will summarize submissions and allow committee members to expand individual submissions for review. The county said each submission will be assigned a back-end ID that will be matched to a supervisor’s account for payment authorization and that, over time, the committee will only see requests that require approval.

Committee members raised user-experience issues with the portal, including difficulties creating or linking accounts and autofill behavior. Staff said administrators can override password resets and will investigate sign-in and autofill problems.

On preapproval, the committee approved a motion to preapprove the one submission in the packet; members also discussed the need to spell out parameters for which meetings qualify for preapproval in the future. One supervisor said the committee should develop objective criteria so decisions are not purely subjective.

The committee also approved payment authorization requests contained in the packet with one omission: Supervisor Dodge’s May 22 submission was removed at the supervisor’s request and excluded from approval. Motion to approve the packet except for Dodge’s May 22 entry carried on a voice vote.

Why it matters: the new portal and back-end tracking aim to centralize submissions, create an audit trail (IDs matched to accounts) and reduce administrative friction. Supervisors and staff requested clearer preapproval criteria to guide future approvals.

Ending: Staff will continue refining the portal display and back-end workflow and will report back on sign-in issues and suggested parameters for preapproval.