Shared Document Management System
Set-up & Implementation
A Municipal Shared Service Collaboration between the City of Northampton and the Towns of Williamsburg, Goshen, Chesterfield, Southampton, and Westhampton

Executive Summary

Municipalities who have leveraged the use of technology to operate their local government have been able to maximize on the greatest potential for optimum management of municipal services. Unfortunately for smaller towns who lack capacity and resources, it's difficult to keep up with technology changes, task coordination, and start-up costs to benefit from the efficiencies that technology provides. Thanks to the Commonwealth's Community Compact Program and grant resources, as well as District Local Technical Assistance funds from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, five (5) small towns (Williamsburg, Westhampton, Chesterfield, Goshen, and Southampton) have been able to jointly leverage these state resources and coordinate efforts to successfully implement an existing secured and accessible electronic public records management system at the City of Northampton's Data Center with Northampton as the host municipality. Northampton currently uses Laserfiche with General Code and has been adopting the system in its community for 10+ years. This streamlined system allows for the City of Northampton to meet their public records management mandates at a much more effective and efficient means rather than the traditional physical data storage methods that has caused in-house 'bottle-necking'. The City was graciously willing and supportive to expand its capabilities and experiences using the system with the five (5) participating surrounding municipalities as a host community in a shared service capacity. The report that can be found in the attachment below will serve as a smart guide with best practice steps for coordinating a process to lead toward implementing such a system in a municipal shared service collaborative status.