How to lighten the load for municipal clerks

Meet Miranda Jones, clerk for the Town of Dianavale. Her job involves setting up meetings for multiple boards and committees, keeping records straight and making sure everything runs smoothly. Sounds manageable, until you add hours of printing emails, scanning documents into PDFs and juggling email lists. On top of that, she fields constant requests from the community and local media for meeting minutes and other information.

If you’re a clerk, this probably sounds familiar. Today’s clerks handle packed agendas, coordinate submissions from every department, support livestreamed meetings, write detailed minutes and keep everything transparent — all under tight deadlines and with limited resources.

One of the biggest challenges clerks face today is workload.

That’s why towns like Carbondale, Colorado, are turning to digital tools like Diligent Community. With automated workflows, AI-powered minutes, flexible approval paths and a public website, clerks can cut manual work, boost accuracy and keep their communities informed, without burning out.

Make agendas and minutes a breeze

Creating agendas can eat up hours. Diligent Community changes that with smart Agenda Management tools. Departments submit items through easy, standardized forms, while clerks can set up custom approval paths and track progress. Approvers can sign off via SMS, no more chasing by email and no more delays.

Board members can even annotate agenda items themselves, so clerks don’t have to reformat or resend materials.

For minutes, Diligent Community's AI-Supported Minutes drafts accurate notes straight from livestream transcripts, capturing motions, decisions and key takeaways. Need to tweak a motion? The system suggests updated text based on past records. One click and you’re done.

One location for live meetings and public access

Running a live meeting often means juggling multiple screens for votes, motions, attendance and livestreams. Diligent Community brings it all together helping you to manage votes, motions, and timestamps in one place. Livestream your publicly held meetings easily with BoxCast integration, showing the agenda alongside the video for clarity.

Then once the meeting is done, it's easy to post recordings with time-stamped minutes for easy navigation. Residents get accurate, timely info without clerks spending hours on uploads and emails.

Ditch the manual grind

Streamline agendas, notes and compliance with digital tools built for busy clerks.

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After the meeting: Automated follow-ups

Once the meeting ends, the work doesn’t stop. Clerks must finalize minutes, report action items and update public records.

With a solution like Diligent Community, minutes need fewer edits because motions and votes are captured in real time. Approved documents can be published automatically to the public site and action items tied to motions are tracked, so there's no more chasing updates.

Transparency without the headache

Clerks have to be on top of open meeting laws and ADA compliance along with public records requests. Again, the beauty of Diligent Community is it handles it all.

Agendas, minutes, livestreams, and documents are posted on a modern, searchable public site.

Confidential info stays secure, while residents find what they need fast.

Councils can even share progress on goals and KPIs, boosting accountability without adding work.

Quick time-saving tips for clerks

With digital tools, even small adjustments can save hours each month. Here are some tips to help you save time:

• Use standardized templates for agenda items to reduce formatting issues.
• Leverage AI-Supported Minutes to cut drafting time dramatically.
• Use approval workflows to keep submissions moving.
• Train staff and officials on using your agenda submission workflow.
• Keep all documents in the centralized repository to avoid searching email archives.
• Publish automatically to the public website to eliminate duplicate work.

The bottom line is, digital tools free up clerks to focus on what matters most—serving their community.

Ready to see how Diligent Community can help? Request a demo today.

FAQ: Agenda management, minutes and public access

1. How can clerks streamline agenda creation with Diligent Community?

Diligent Community offers flexible agenda workflows, custom approval trees, SMS approval requests and standardized submission forms, ensuring departments submit complete, consistent agenda items without clerks manually chasing information.

2. How does Diligent Community improve meeting minutes?

The AI-Supported Minutes feature generates accurate draft minutes from livestream transcripts, capturing motions, decisions and actions automatically. Clerks can refine and publish minutes faster, with fewer edits.

3. How does Diligent Community simplify public access and transparency?

The Public Transparency Website automatically publishes agendas, packets, livestreams, recordings and minutes in ADA-compliant formats. A search tool helps community members find information quickly, reducing public records requests.