 Prompt Local
Issue No. 10 · Tuesday, October 6, 2026 · By Scott Olsen | ||||
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PULL UP A CHAIR This week's pick is about software for handling public records requests, and that topic is personal. I watched the volume of those requests grow every single year I was at the clerk's office, to the point where it became its own burden on top of everyone's actual job. For most of that time, we tracked everything on spreadsheets. Different staff had access to track different pieces, which meant nobody had the full picture at once. Before anything went back out to the public, it had to pass through one or two people for review, every time. Before I left, we contracted with JustFOIA and got it into testing. It launched not long after I was gone, so I never got to run it myself day to day, but from what I saw in testing, I was genuinely impressed. I want to be clear that is not a recommendation, just my own limited experience with one of the three we are discussing this week. Public records requests have always struck me as a real double-edged sword. I believe in government transparency without reservation, and most requests are completely legitimate. A lot of people requesting records do not actually know what they are looking for. Someone needs one filing out of an old case, and because they are not sure what exists, they request the entire case, redactions and all. That is a lot of extra work for one document somebody could have gotten in a five-minute conversation if anyone had asked what they actually needed first. Some requests are just somebody being a nosy neighbor. More than once, I saw a records request that turned out to be a class assignment, a professor having students file one to show how government transparency works. I understand the lesson they are trying to teach. I also know that assignment lands as real work on a real employee's desk, whether the professor thinks about that part or not. I can tell you firsthand that a spreadsheet was not the answer for us. That is not to say it never works: if your volume is low, or you have one dedicated person managing nothing but records requests, a spreadsheet might hold up fine. In our office, the work was spread across multiple divisions, and that created pain points at every one of them. What actually got the software purchase approved, after years of hesitation, was not a brilliant argument from me. The process had gotten sloppy enough that people above me started noticing, and there happened to be budget left over that year. That is the honest version. If there is one thing I would tell any office looking at a software purchase, not just records request software: let the software solve the problem it was built to solve. Just because your office has always done something a certain way does not mean that way is correct. The vendor already spent real time and money figuring out how their software is supposed to work, and the moment you step outside those boundaries is usually the moment you start building workarounds that do not meet the standard the software was designed to hit. I'm always happy to talk public records. If you have questions about my experience with JustFOIA, or just want to compare notes on how your own office handles requests, hit reply and tell me. THIS WEEK'S PICK The software that handles the records-request floodIssues 2 and 3 were about squeezing more out of the office suite you already have: an auto-acknowledgment, a form that writes itself into a spreadsheet. At some point that stops being enough. If your office is fielding enough records requests that tracking them in a spreadsheet has become its own part-time job, it is time to look at dedicated software. Three names come up constantly: NextRequest, GovQA, and JustFOIA. None of them publish pricing, so the real decision is about fit, not cost comparison.
IF YOU HANDLE BODY-CAM FOOTAGE, 911 AUDIO, OR HEAVY COMPLIANCE GovQAOwned by Granicus, GovQA is built for a heavier compliance load: it is CJIS, HIPAA, NIST, and FISMA compliant, a bar most local government offices do not need to clear. Its AI redaction is genuinely different from NextRequest's, it is aimed specifically at audio and video evidence through a partnership with Veritone, not general documents. If your office rarely touches police or health records, that particular feature will mostly sit unused. Cost: quote-based; real grant records show small offices paying in the low thousands per year, larger or more complex agencies considerably more Best for: public safety, health, or any office fielding audio and video requests IF YOU WANT THE SIMPLEST SETUP JustFOIAJustFOIA gets recommended constantly as the easy, budget-friendly pick for a smaller office, worth knowing that framing comes entirely from outside reviewers, not from JustFOIA itself, which just describes itself as built for "local and state government agencies." It covers the same basics, intake, tracking, templates, AI-assisted redaction through the same Veritone technology GovQA uses, and reviewers consistently praise its support and easy setup. Cost: quote-based Best for: smaller offices, per reviewer consensus rather than the vendor's own positioning
HOW TO ACTUALLY USE IT 1. Request a demo from at least two of the three. None of them publish pricing, and the only way to get a real number is to ask. 2. Ask each vendor for a reference customer close to your office's size, not their biggest city, and actually call them. 3. Ask specifically what the AI redaction covers, documents, audio, video, or all three, since that is the detail that actually separates these three, not the sales pitch. 4. Ignore any specific dollar figure you find online before you have one in writing from the vendor. The pricing claims circulating for this category, JustFOIA's especially, are inconsistent enough that most of them look invented. The honest catch: this is a procurement decision, not a quick signup. Budget real time for demos and reference calls, and loop in whoever handles contracts at your office before you fall in love with a feature list. 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.
ONE MORE QUICK WIN Count your requests for 90 days before you shopBefore any demo call, pull three months of actual request volume and type, documents, audio, video, public records vs. internal. That number is what every vendor conversation should start from, and it is the single best way to tell a sales pitch from a real fit. | ||||
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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. |