Memorandum

City of Lawrence

City Manager’s Office

TO:	David L. Corliss, City Manager
FROM:	Jonathan Douglass, Management Analyst
CC:	Debbie Van Saun, Assistant City Manager Casey Liebst, Budget Manager Lisa Patterson, Communications Manager
DATE:	April 13, 2007
RE:	Budget Memo

Attached please find the proposed 2008 budget for the City Commission, the City Manager’s Office, and the Public Information Office.  Items of note for your review are as follows:

§ The City Manager’s Office budget includes funding for a staff person dedicated to economic development issues.

§ The following program improvements are requested by the Public Information Office.

o $19,500 annually for a new monthly newsletter.

o Approximately $1,600 annually for website enhancements that would allow visitors to purchase bus passes, parking passes and maps from Planning online.

o Citizen Response Management (CRM) software, which provides an opportunity to enter requests for services, route the request for service, provide a response and store the interaction for reporting. Initial proposals ranged from $8,640 - $105,000 for CRM software from different vendors.

o Web agenda software would be used for submission of agenda items and supporting materials for the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Department. With appropriate user authorization department representatives select the meeting and meeting date for their agenda item and complete the customized template information for their item and attach the supporting materials. Through workflow, an email is automatically sent to the next person responsible for approving or rejecting the item. After final review the agenda is published to the web. The published agenda may be downloaded in full or citizens may download only items for a particular agenda item. Items may be published in HTML and/or PDF and all material is completely searchable. Proposals ranged from $29,000 - $110,000 for initial setup, plus up to $12,000 annually for maintenance.  

This office looks forward to meeting the challenges and opportunities of 2008 with the resources that are represented in the attached budget proposal and appreciates the City Commission’s consideration of this request.