CW spends $17,500 to improve communication
Centre Wellington Mayor Kelly Linton is excited about the implementation of iCompass software for meeting management and video streaming for the municipality.
“The idea is to help council manage its agendas both at committee of the whole and at advisory committee levels.”
He added the additional module helps the township with its livestreaming of meetings.
“It is all integrated” Linton said.
Councillor Mary Lloyd asked when it would come into effect.
Clerk Kerri O’Kane said the aim is to have it implemented by November.
O’Kane noted that with the renovations to the council chambers it was thought livestreaming of meetings would begin.
Part of the renovations included installation of large screen television monitors to better illustrate items up for discussion.
“We though we would have a little more time, but we are prepared to work on this immediately.”
She added “We’re rather excited we were able to piggyback the livestreaming with this process.”
iCompass is an electronic meeting management system that centralizes and automates many of the tasks associated with committee and council agendas, reports, minutes and communication.
The system standardizes report creation components so agenda assembly can be automated to improve efficiencies. The centralization of all reports, by version to final approval, allows all authorized users to maintain the same view of reports as they are planned and prepared.
Once finalized, agendas and minutes will integrate seamlessly with the municipal website, along with live-stream video of the respective meetings.
The overall cost of the software service and annual rental of all required components is $17,500 plus HST for the first and second year:
The 2015 capital budget for this project is $30,000. The cost for 2015 will be funded from the capital budget, and become an operating budget item thereafter.
