La Porte Independent School District
The Situation
The La Porte Independent School District (ISD) supports the educational community in and around La Porte, Texas. The district operates with an annual budget of over $75 million and employs more than 1,000 teachers, administration and support personnel.
As one of the smaller school districts in the state, the La Porte ISD needs to monitor the Texas legislative process to insure that larger districts do not dominate its interests. The district's Superintendent recognizes that decisions made in Austin during the legislative session are having an impact on every facet of the district's operations from tax dollars collected, to teacher compensation, the purchase of text books, and even environmental issues. Consequently, the La Porte ISD wants to insure that its voice on all issues affecting the district is conveyed.
The Challenge
David Webb, the Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Superintendent for Business for the La Porte ISD, is tasked with keeping up with the legislation that affects the district. The La Porte ISD's interests and concerns are very broad based as an employer as well as a state funded agency.
"We needed to follow all legislation that might affect the district," said Webb, "and I was in need of a central resource for locating the legislation and a system that would allow me to track that legislation as it moved through the session."
"We did not have the budget for someone from the district to travel to Austin three to four days a week, yet we needed to know what was going on. I needed a solution where I could be informed, notified and presented with relevant information in a timely fashion. We could not rely solely upon associations or lobbyists hired by larger school districts to represent our concerns."
The Decision
"We needed a flexible and affordable solution that would provide us with timely and accurate information. When reviewing what was available on the market, nobody had a solution that was as comprehensive and easy-to-use as GalleryWatch," Webb stated.
The Solution
"GalleryWatch's system allows me to set up tracks of bills and to monitor committee schedules. It automatically sends me e-mail updates when changes occur to the schedules or when important actions take place on legislation I am following," commented Webb. "GalleryWatch's coverage of committee hearings is amazing! I can listen to the audio, review the GalleryWatch news service articles, download written testimony and other documents…all without having to travel to Austin."
The GalleryWatch Difference
GalleryWatch provided the La Porte ISD with the tools they needed to manage the legislative process. "The net effect of using GalleryWatch is that it saves me time and the school district money. I could not possibly collect all of the information that GalleryWatch provides by utilizing strictly public resources."
"For us, a key benefit of the GalleryWatch system is its total coverage of the legislative and regulatory process. As a school district, we have to make both short and long term plans about how we are going to spend tax dollars. Legislation and regulatory decisions affect our strategic planning process. With GalleryWatch, I can get the information I need both during the session and during the interim to educate the School Board so that they can make better informed decisions."
About GalleryWatch's Texas Services
Texas state information and services include bill and agency searching, tracking and notification, voting scorecards, comprehensive news coverage, and committee transcripts. Notification capabilities for most services include receiving timely information via e-mail, text messaging, PDA's, pager, and dynamic web page display. GalleryWatch's Bill Analysis Management System (GW-BAMS™), an enterprise-wide workflow application, manages resources, tracking, analysis and scheduling for legislative information management and research efforts throughout an organization. Task delegation, reporting, analysis, archival bill histories, and notification on bills and amendment status and scheduling are provided with BAMS through an Application Service Provider (ASP) model.
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