Remove ImagesiPads – coming to a commissioner near you
October 18, 2012
Guilford County residents who use Apple iPads are about to get a treat from Guilford County government – as are the Guilford County commissioners, who will soon be getting iPads to use in their duties as commissioners.
The commissioners voted recently to enhance the county's web-based video capabilities to allow county residents to watch commissioners meetings on their iPads – both the live streaming of meetings and the recorded versions that are archived at the county's website.
In addition, the Board of Commissioners is moving its agendas, communications and other tasks to an iPad-based system, and soon the county is expected to purchase iPads for the commissioners – unless a commissioner already owns one and prefers to use that iPad for his or her commissioners duties.
That is likely to take place a month and a half from now when the smaller nine-member Board of Commissioners, with some new faces, is in place and other training for the freshman commissioners is also going on.
To begin the transition to an iPad-centric Board of Commissioners, the clerk to the board's office has ordered two iPads, and the clerk and deputy clerk will begin training county commissioners on those with the iLegislate app, software created and marketed by Granicus Inc. That company makes popular software for running, recording, archiving and distributing government-related meetings as well as managing other content for local and state governments.
The commissioners and the clerks won't be the first Guilford County officials to get iPads paid for by the taxpayers. Some Guilford County department heads are already using county-purchased iPads. For instance, Guilford County Budget Director Michael Halford is rarely seen these days without his by his side.
So it was only a matter of time before the ubiquitous tablet made it to the Board of Commissioners.
Commissioners meetings are televised on Time Warner Cablevision's channel 13 as well as streamed live on the internet. Granicus also manages the document archiving on the county's website, and that system also plays a large role in running the commissioners meetings – by, for instance, letting the chairman see a queue of names of which commissioners are waiting to speak.
At least two Guilford County commissioners, Commissioners Paul Gibson and Carolyn Coleman, already have their own iPads.
Though every county commissioner will be expected to use an iPad – so that the new iLegislate system will be comprehensive across the board – one source questioned if Commissioner Kay Cashion would welcome the change since she still communicates with county staff, fellow commissioners and her constituents with a typewriter and fax machine instead of email.
The first two iPads bought for use by the commissioners and the clerk's office – black iPad 2's with a cell package – are being purchased with money from a county technology enhancement fund, and the hardware and software was approved at the commissioners' Thursday, Oct. 4 meeting.
The item was on the board's "consent agenda" – which is a list of items usually reserved for non-controversial housekeeping-type matters. That motion called for the Board of Commissioners to authorize $3,525 to purchase hardware, software and support that provides "enhanced capabilities of mobile streaming, conducive to the use of iPads or other similar such mobile devices."
When asked why the county got iPad 2's rather than the newest iPads with retina displays, Guilford County Deputy Clerk to the Board Crystal Maurer said, "We didn't need the newest version for our purposes."
Maurer said it's common, when new technology is introduced to the Board of Commissioners, for the clerks to undergo training and then assist the county commissioners on using that technology.
Ever since April 2010, when the Apple tablets were introduced, they have been revolutionizing everything from store checkout lines to hospital operating rooms. A few months ago, American Airlines became the first passenger airline that the Federal Aviation Administration allowed to use iPads in the cockpit in order for pilots to access flight plans and other flight data.
Once the board is receiving their agendas on iPads, the agenda items or information packets that accompany the agenda can be updated electronically, and the commissioners will no longer have the often unpleasant realization that there's a last-minute addendum to the agenda they're seeing for the first time when they sit down at the dais at the start of a meeting.
It should be kept in mind that just because a commissioner has some material doesn't mean he or she will read it.
Maurer said using the iPads should save the county a lot of money in paper costs as well as postage, since staff currently mails large packets to the commissioners with their meeting agendas and materials.
To buy new iPads that can access cellular data plans for each of the nine commissioners on the smaller board that will be in place in December would cost about $4,500, plus the cost of the data access plans, which will probably total around $270 a month.
Halford said that his county-bought iPad paid for itself quickly since he was no longer printing out and carrying around large budget-related documents and supplemental information. As the county's budget director, he frequently needs to pull up information when asked a question at staff meetings or commissioners work sessions.
Halford said there's no question it saves a lot of ink and paper.
"I've stopped printing my own copies of the county's agendas, budgets, and capital plans. I can edit and review them from my iPad, so I don't need to waste ink and hundreds of pieces of paper printing them."