Does a municipality have to be large to realize the benefits of digital document management and a geographical information system (GIS)?
“The answer, in our case, is absolutely not,” says Renee Geyer, city clerk for Leoti, Kansas. “These tools enable us to serve our constituents much more effectively. In our view, smaller cities and towns should be looking to bring in these capabilities. They’re needed now and are only going to become more necessary in the future.”

Leoti, a farming community in western Kansas, is the seat of Wichita County. Although it has a population of only 1,700, Leoti consistently ranks high in state surveys of per capita income and education attainment levels. One of the largest cattle feedlots in the United States, a feed mill and a corn-to-alcohol conversion plant contribute to the local economy.

With $2.1 million in grant/loan funds received through the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program, Leoti is developing an information management system that uses a Laserfiche® document management solution and GIS software from ESRI®. “The grant is specifically for waterworks improvements,” Geyer explains. “As a by-product of that campaign, however, the grant will also enable us to improve our ability to deliver every municipal service.”

The city uses GIS for maintaining and upgrading its waterworks system. With GIS, the location of mains, hydrants, valves and other underground water systems infrastructure can be pinpointed. Other services—telephone, cable, gas and electricity—will soon be located underground. “You can’t deal with these things visually any more and have to recognize that GIS is the wave of the future for taking care of them, too,” Geyer says.

As maps are created, Leoti uses Laserfiche to implement a searchable digital archive of all city records. City officials have three goals for the new system:
·                            Enable GIS users to retrieve supporting information on map features, such as maintenance reports on a particular water hydrant, interactively.
·                            Create a central, instantly-searchable records library that can be accessed by all authorized city employees.
·                            Link GIS with the city’s finance and accounting system.
The integration of Laserfiche with the other programs will automate the transfer of information between systems. The document management interface will allow city employees who are not familiar with GIS or the city’s financial system to retrieve needed information in response to requests from citizens and others.
Geyer notes that cost is the biggest obstacle facing small municipalities thinking of following Leoti’s lead. “We could not have made the budgetary commitment without the grant, even though I believe that the two systems will more than pay for themselves,” she says. “In addition to seeking their own grants, small cities and towns could look into joining forces with other agencies such as schools and county government or putting together a group of small municipalities to share the costs. In my opinion, they will come to agree that the benefits far outweigh any possible drawbacks.”