 Prompt Local
Issue No. 3 · Tuesday, August 18, 2026 · By Scott Olsen | ||||||
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PULL UP A CHAIR A sheriff's office in Arkansas posted an evidence photo from a drug bust to Facebook. Somewhere along the way, someone used AI to clean up the background before it went out, tidy up the clutter, nothing to do with the evidence itself, at least according to the department. People online noticed it looked off anyway, and now there is a real question hanging over that photo that never needed to exist. Here is the part that stuck with me. It does not matter how small the edit actually was. The moment someone finds out a photo from your office was touched up at all, they stop trusting that one photo, and then they start wondering about the next one, and the one after that. Trust does not come back one photo at a time. It leaves all at once. I spent eleven years around records, and the whole job rests on one idea: a record means this is what actually happened, untouched. Not "close enough." Not "the parts that mattered are accurate." Exactly what happened. AI is genuinely useful for a lot of what your office does, drafting, summarizing, getting a first pass done faster. But the second something is going out as the record, evidence, minutes, a photo tied to an official action, that bar cannot move, and I do not think it is enough to just be careful. If you touch it, say so. Plainly, every time. I am curious if this has already come up where you are, a photo, a document, anything that got a little AI help before it went out the door and then had to answer for it. Hit reply and tell me, I would like to know I am not the only one thinking about this. THIS WEEK'S PICK Stop rekeying form data into spreadsheetsIf someone fills out a form and a staff member then retypes it into a spreadsheet, that is an hour nobody needed to spend. Every major form tool can write straight into a spreadsheet on its own. The setup is different depending on what you already run, so start with what you have before you buy anything new.
IF YOU RUN MICROSOFT FORMS Power Automate, not the built-in Excel exportForms has an "Open in Excel" button, but it is not real-time. Someone has to reopen the workbook to see new responses, which defeats the point. The reliable version is a short Power Automate flow, but two things need to be true before you open Power Automate at all: the destination Excel file has to already live in OneDrive or SharePoint, not a local drive or network share, or Power Automate will not be able to see it, and that file needs its data formatted as an actual Excel Table, not just a plain range. Select your data, then Insert, Table, and give it a name. With that in place, build the flow: trigger on "When a new response is submitted," add "Get response details," then add "Add a row into a table" and pick the table you just created. All of this is included starting at Microsoft 365 Business Basic, no separate purchase. Cost: included from Business Basic ($7/user/month) Setup: one flow, about 15 minutes IF YOU ARE NOT ON MICROSOFT OR GOOGLE JotformJotform is actually sold to local governments, not just marketed at them, it is on the same GSA and NASPO purchasing contracts your office likely already uses for other software, with real county and city customers behind it. Build the form, open the Integrations menu, connect Google Sheets or Excel, and every submission writes to a row automatically. The free tier is fine for testing but caps out fast at 100 submissions a month. The government-grade tier is quote-only and commonly lands in the thousands of dollars a year, so do not assume this one is cheap, budget for it like the other software you buy. Cost: free tier for light testing, paid plans from about $34/month, government tier is quote-only Setup: connect Sheets or Excel from the Integrations menu
HOW TO ACTUALLY USE IT 1. Pick the path above that matches what you already run, and connect the form to the spreadsheet using those steps. 2. Before you point the public at it, submit one test response yourself and confirm it lands correctly. With Google Forms specifically, do this before the form goes live, not after. 3. Tell whoever is supposed to review the spreadsheet what "done" looks like. A row that fills itself in is only useful if someone is actually watching it. The honest catch: if you use a third-party tool like Jotform for anything touching resident PII, that data passes through their servers, not just Microsoft's or Google's. That is not automatically a problem, plenty of agencies use vetted vendors for exactly this, but it is a different data-handling posture. Check with whoever handles security before you connect a form holding Social Security numbers, financial details, or anything else sensitive. THE RULEBOOK · TWO RULES WORTH A GLANCE What changed that affects how your office can use AI. Short, plain, and sourced. The part that keeps you out of the newspaper. Tagged Local for a city or county action, State for a change at the state level, Federal for a change at the federal level that reaches your desk. Quiet week in Florida specifically, this week's items come from Arkansas and California, worth knowing regardless of where you sit.
FREE THIS WEEK
ONE MORE QUICK WIN Check what is already in the license you are paying forHalf the "we need a new tool" conversations in government offices end the moment someone actually reads what is bundled into the software the office already pays for. Before your next request for a new AI tool, spend ten minutes checking what your existing Microsoft or Google license already includes. More on that soon. | ||||||
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Know someone at another city or county who could use this? Forward it over.
Until next week, Scott Olsen, CGCIO Former CIO with eleven years in Florida local government Practical guidance for local government, not legal or procurement advice. |