Walk into any city hall on a Tuesday morning, and you’ll find what I’ve experienced countless times in my career as a city manager: back-to-back meetings, many now virtual, that drive the engine of municipal government. Project updates with engineering consultants at 9 a.m., budget discussions with department heads at 10:30, emergency planning coordination at 2 p.m., and a community development strategy session before the day ends.
Each meeting generates decisions, commitments and next steps that keep our city moving forward. But here’s the problem I’ve wrestled with throughout my tenure: By Friday, critical details from Tuesday’s conversations have already started to fade.
THE HIDDEN COST OF LOST INFORMATION
In my experience managing four Florida municipalities of various sizes and complexities, the most expensive words in local government are often, “I thought we already decided this.” When a councilmember asks about the status of the downtown revitalization project, or when a department head questions whether we approved the new traffic-calming measures, the scramble begins.
Staff members dig through their personal notes. We schedule follow-up meetings to reconstruct decisions. Projects slow down while we verify what was actually agreed upon. In the worst cases, we inadvertently reverse course on initiatives simply because no one can definitively say what we committed to months earlier.
This isn’t just inefficiency — it’s a direct threat to public trust. Our neighbors expect consistency and follow-through. When we can’t deliver because our institutional memory has gaps, we fail them.
THE STAFFING REALITY
As city managers, we’re all too familiar with doing more with less. The clerk’s office works tirelessly to ensure statutory compliance for public meetings, but expecting them to document every advisory board meeting is unrealistic and unfair.
I think it is safe to say that a city conducts roughly 200 advisory board and internal meetings per month — capital improvement reviews, interdepartmental coordination sessions, vendor meetings, development and site plan reviews. Even if there was the budget to hire additional staff specifically for documentation (which there isn’t), the training time alone would be prohibitive.
Meanwhile, our department heads are already stretched thin. When I ask the staff in the Public Works department to also serve as note-taker during a crucial infrastructure meeting, I’m asking them to split their attention between driving the conversation and capturing it. Neither task gets done well.
WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS
After years of frustration, I’ve learned that effective meeting documentation isn’t about perfect transcripts — it’s about usable outcomes. Here’s what a city manager actually needs:
Clarity on commitments: When we leave a meeting, everyone should have the same understanding of who’s doing what by when. No ambiguity, no assumptions.
Searchable history: Six months from now, when the state asks about our flood mitigation timeline, I need to quickly find what we discussed and decided. No need to hunt through three different people’s notebooks.
Right-sized sharing: Some conversations need to stay internal. Others should be shared with contractors, partner agencies or the public. I need the flexibility to customize what gets communicated to whom.
Staff empowerment: My best department heads are strategic thinkers and problem-solvers. The more time they spend on administrative tasks like note-taking, the less time they have to focus on serving our neighbors.
THE TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION THAT MAKES SENSE
I’ve been skeptical of technology solutions that promise to revolutionize government. Too often, they create more problems than they solve. But AI-powered meeting documentation is different — it addresses a real operational need without trying to replace human judgment. I have asked one of the providers in this space to share her perspective here:
“AI-powered solutions like AudioCodes Meeting Insights for Local Government were built to tackle these challenges,” says Ayelet Levi, director of local government products at AudioCodes. “Our platform uses generative AI to automate and streamline municipal workflows, helping cities meet regulatory requirements and share information faster.
“For example, Meeting Insights automatically generates structured public meeting minutes based on the meeting’s transcript and agenda, identifying speakers, motions, votes, and public comments, and turning them into clear, editable minutes ready for publication. It also extracts action items and decisions, assigns them to relevant departments, and integrates the results with existing systems.
“Unlike other dedicated solutions that focus solely on public meetings, Meeting Insights enables recording, transcription and AI-generated insights for both public and internal meetings, allowing cities to capture all information in a single, secure, searchable knowledge base. What once resided in scattered notebooks is now organized and easily accessible. Clerks are freed up from manual documentation, processes are automated and staff can instantly search past meetings for any topic, whether it’s stormwater drainage, ARPA funding or public safety coordination, gaining more time to focus on residents’ needs. City leaders, in turn, can trust that decisions will be remembered and acted upon. In today’s climate of increased accountability,tight budgets and staffing shortages, that’s not just convenient — it’s essential.”
This isn’t about replacing staff — it’s about giving them better tools. The clerk’s office can focus on their core responsibilities. Department heads can engage fully in discussions without worrying about documentation. And you can have confidence that decisions made in January will still be actionable in July.
THE BOTTOM LINE FOR CITY MANAGERS
Municipal governance is complex enough without adding the burden of lost information. Every decision that is made affects real people’s lives — their commute, their neighborhood safety, their property values, their quality of life.
AI-powered meeting documentation isn’t a luxury or a nice-to-have. In today’s environment of increased accountability and decreased resources, it’s an operational necessity. It’s the difference between reactive management and proactive leadership.
As city managers, you owe it to your staff, your councils and your neighbors to preserve and act on the knowledge that is generated every day. The technology exists. The need is clear. The question is whether you will embrace solutions that make you more effective at the job you were hired to do.
Lee Feldman is a senior fellow at the Center for Digital Government, a principal with The Euclid Group and has served as city manager for the cities of North Miami, Palm Bay, Fort Lauderdale and Gainesville, Fla. He is a life member and past president of the International City/County Management Association.
The Center for Digital Government and Governing are both divisions of e.Republic.
