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City Clerk outlines records workload, public-records request overhaul and system replacements
Summary
Jamie Heiserling, the city clerk, described the newly established City Clerk Department’s responsibilities, records holdings and 2024 activity counts and said a replacement public-records-request system and a legislative management system are planned.
Jamie Heiserling, city clerk and director of the newly formed City Clerk Department, briefed the council on the office’s responsibilities, staffing and planned IT replacements.
Heiserling said records management, public records requests and legislative support are central statutory functions of the department. "It is not just about throwing documents," Heiserling said, explaining the office’s role administering records retention, access and compliance with state law.
Heiserling reported operational statistics for 2024: the clerk’s office handled more than 3,500 public-records requests (excluding the police department’s requests), had roughly 6,500 boxes stored at an off-site records center and processed 718 box requests. The city’s OnBase content-management system contains nearly 4,000,000 electronic records, she said. In 2024 the office destroyed 204 physical boxes and more than 250,000 electronic records following retention and legal review procedures.
On permitting and licensing, Heiserling said the department served more than 20,000 customer interactions in 2024, fingerprinted nearly 3,500 people, issued more than 12,000 licenses across about 40 license types and collected roughly $900,000 in licensing revenue. The clerk’s office supports meeting management for boards and commissions and noted it clerked 76 board and commission meetings in 2024, processed 711 resolutions and 33 ordinances.
Heiserling outlined three near-term, citywide projects: a replacement public-records-request (PRR) system intended to consolidate PRR intake and processing; replacement of the city’s legislative management system (currently end of life); and consolidation of the city’s two records/archive centers to improve public access and security. She said vendors for the PRR system are being evaluated and demos were planned; the PRR vendor has not been selected.
To track large projects and internal work, the new department will implement a project-management tool. Heiserling said the citywide tool in use is Orchestra and that the clerk’s office is aligning with that solution to standardize project tracking.
Council members asked about digitizing stored records and vendor selection. Heiserling said digitization requires a return-on-investment evaluation and staff capacity considerations, and that further planning will be part of the department’s strategic work.
Heiserling described the clerk’s office as a 12-member team that provides both frontline customer service and citywide legislative and records support and said the department will continue work to optimize staffing and systems to meet statutory obligations.
