City clerk seeks permanent visual/digital specialist, proposes switch to CivicPlus for ordinance codification

City Clerk Jacob presented the city clerk’s portion of the proposed 2026 City of Carmel budget, asking councilors to consider adding a permanent visual and digital specialist to his office.

Jacob said the position’s duties would include streaming and recording public meetings, scheduling and managing Carmel TV and Midtown TV, basic video editing, and maintaining the new public meetings web page on the city’s website. He told councilors the role supports a state requirement he cited that “meeting streaming, anything that happens in this room needs to be live streamed, and so it's required by law.”

Jacob also discussed plans to move the city code to CivicPlus codification as part of the website migration. He said CivicPlus can display ordinances as pending immediately after passage and reduce the lag between passage and codification; he called the switch “a good change” that should reduce errors and confusion when codification lags behind enacted ordinances.

On staffing and budget, Jacob said his office’s personnel levels would remain largely unchanged and that the 0% overall increase in his budget amounts to approximately $2,000. He said personal services increases reflect COLA and step increases, not new headcount, aside from the proposed visual/digital specialist. When asked about total cost, Jacob estimated the full compensation for the specialist “around $70,000” including benefits. He also asked councilors to consider whether the position should be housed in the clerk's office or remain in Experience Carmel or marketing.

Jacob described other clerk‑office items funded in the budget: contracted services for meeting streaming and OpenGov, membership dues to clerks’ organizations, and an ordinance codification line that would remain unchanged if the CivicPlus move proceeds.

On tuition reimbursement, Jacob said he’d originally removed the line from his budget and then restored it after learning HR intended to centralize the program; he said tuition requests already approved for a specific employee would be paid and subsequent approvals will be processed through HR.

If council approves the visual and digital specialist in the clerk budget, Jacob said the position would take over many of the duties now performed by a contractor and by Experience Carmel staff, and he said he has a baseline salary figure prepared for council review.

He concluded by noting the clerk’s office has already reduced operating costs substantially over the prior two years and said he would provide the council additional detail on the position and the CivicPlus transition as requested.