Article by: Kory Peal | OpenGov | View the original article here.
OpenGov’s High-Performance Government Awards shine a spotlight on forward-thinking and innovative public sector organizations that leverage modern tools and practices to drive meaningful change.
These prestigious awards highlight the game-changing work cities, counties, special districts, and state agencies have put in to improve processes, foster efficiency, and bring out the best in their communities.
High-Performance Government Award Winners
City of Plano, Parks and Recreation
Plano’s Parks and Recreation Department is recognized for its use of Cartegraph Asset Management, now part of the OpenGov Cloud, to optimize the lifecycle management of its playground system. To improve transparency and collaboration, they used data-driven assessments to create a prioritized replacement list that can be shared in seconds. At the same time, their use of automated data delivery significantly reduced administrative workloads, while geospatial analysis provided detailed insights into floodplain locations and proximity to other public spaces, boosting overall decision-making.
Town of Shrewsbury, MA
The Town of Shrewsbury took home a High-Performance Government Award for its impressive business transformation centered around Customer Self-Service. The team used OpenGov Permitting & Licensing to consolidate 88 forms from 15 departments (including Planning, Recreation, Conservation, Utility Billing and more) into a single platform. This led to a 36% increase in online records created and a 37% boost in revenue collection. Congratulations to the Shrewsbury team for their outstanding achievement!
Boulder County Office of Financial Management
The Office of Financial Management at Boulder County is recognized for streamlining its budget book development process using OpenGov Budgeting & Planning. By creating a transparent and visually appealing budget book, the team reduced the project timeline by more than two months, meeting crucial deadlines and allowing them to focus on other critical analytical tasks.
City of West Allis, WI
West Allis received a High-Performance Government Award for improving its street parking experience with the help of OpenGov Permitting & Licensing. By shifting to an online system, residents now receive instant approval for parking, eliminating the costly and slow process of mailing stickers. People can also apply for free permissions online, reducing the need to call the non-emergency police line. This change has sped up services, cut internal costs, and nearly eliminated invalid citations.
City of Gahanna, OH
The City of Gahanna received a High-Performance Government Award for improving internal collaboration between their Planning and Engineering departments and boosting customer satisfaction through OpenGov Permitting & Licensing. The city’s rental property registration completion rates more than doubled, jumping from 40% in the previous cycle to 85%, with nearly all applications processed online. The streamlined process also cut approval times from 12 to 5 days. This joint implementation enhanced efficiency and fostered better teamwork across departments, making Gahanna a standout in government innovation.
City of Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles earned a High-Performance Government Award for putting residents first using modern asset management tools to prepare for the 2028 Olympics and beyond. StreetsLA has created 177 automations to streamline workflows, integrated systems, and is rolling out OpenGov Permitting & Licensing to better serve residents. On top of this accomplishment, the Bureau of Street Lighting transitioned from a legacy system to Cartegraph Asset Management, processing over 527,000 street light requests and deploying 200 mobile devices. And to top it off, the Recreation and Parks Department and Department of Transportation are on track to go live before Thanksgiving, fully embracing the new system for smoother operations.
City of Colorado Springs
The City of Colorado Springs is recognized as a high-performance government for its Keep It Clean COS, a citywide effort to reduce litter from public rights of way, medians, and streets. Using Cartegraph Asset Management, the City has been able to track requests and streamline work orders to prioritize high-traffic corridors. The system has helped centralize tasks for removing trash, managing weed abatement, and clearing debris. And the results speak for themselves! They managed to clean 52 miles of medians, 226 miles of right of way, and collected 117,590 tons of debris, including 600 tires and 1,800 shopping carts. That’s equivalent to 25 Olympic-size swimming pools of trash or 1,212 dump trucks!
In addition, over 14,520 labor hours were recorded for cleanup, addressing 963 resident requests. Likewise, the WorkCOS program, a collaboration between Colorado Springs and local nonprofits, also contributed to this success, offering employment to individuals experiencing homelessness. In 2023, five participants moved into permanent housing, and several others transitioned into full-time roles with the City.
Hillsborough County Aviation Authority
Hillsborough County Aviation Authority and Tampa International Airport have earned a High-Performance Government Award for their strategic use of OpenGov Procurement to address workload challenges. By analyzing a three-year trend, procurement leadership identified a 24% increase in workload from FY 2021 to FY 2023. This data-driven insight allowed them to reassign departments and justify the need for an additional full-time employee in FY 2025, ensuring better support for their procurement agents and improved overall efficiency.
City of Plano, Park Support / Park Planning
Plano’s Parks Support and Planning teams secured a High-Performance Government Award for their impressive work managing over 10,000 median trees through cross-functional collaboration. With nearly half of the city’s tree inventory located in rights-of-way, the team developed a long-term irrigation solution to protect these assets using Cartegraph Asset Management. By having all the necessary data at hand, they could visualize the impact of the unirrigated trees on the infrastructure, prioritize resources effectively, and collaborate across departments. Plano continues to foster a strong asset management culture, integrating it into public engagement and information systems city-wide.
State of West Virginia, Auditor’s Office
The State of West Virginia Auditor’s Office received a High-Performance Government Award for achieving the ambitious goal of providing state-wide transparency and workflows to enhance access to clear and digestible data services. After facing limited public and internal knowledge of state and local budgets to track spending, initiatives, and audits, they partnered with OpenGov Financials and Reporting & Transparency for a fresh change. When it was all said and done, most of the state was signed up for its transparency program, workflows for pharma, housing, and more, a state-wide portal that is widely used. Now, residents in 50 cities, 40 counties, and all 55 school boards have complete access to “first-class, immediate transparency” surrounding state spending.
City of Selma, CA
The City of Selma is recognized for decreasing wait times and increasing stakeholder satisfaction by reworking its city development and permit management process. By utilizing OpenGov Permitting & Licensing, Selma established workflow accountability from start to finish, tracked permit timelines, and improved customer service. Now, staff can consistently monitor issuance times and make data-driven adjustments when necessary. Similar strides were also made for over-the-counter electrical, plumbing, and mechanical permits. Plus, their use of data reports can be quickly analyzed to identify gaps and make necessary adjustments, making it easier to solve issues for individual permits during processing.
City of Hollywood, Florida, Office of Procurement & Contracts Compliance
The City of Hollywood, FL, earned a High-Peformance Government Award for modernizing its procurement process to overcome challenges associated with paper-based workflows, siloed departments, and scattered contract management, resulting in plenty of back-and-forth communication and compliance risks while developing solicitations. Partnering with OpenGov Procurement, Hollywood automated and streamlined its procurement workflows, from making faster evaluations to improving contract management. With tools like the Project Intake module, the City now collects procurement requests in one place, accurately tracks contracts, and uses dashboards to make informed decisions across departments.
US Virgin Islands
The US Virgin Islands took home a High-Performance Government Award for leading the way in government technology within the Caribbean by overcoming significant challenges with new staff and major budget constraints. By adopting OpenGov Budgeting & Planning, they successfully tracked and managed their complex budget processes, which involved handling massive amounts of data. This digital strategy not only streamlined their operations but positioned the US Virgin Islands as a pioneer in GovTech for the region. As a result, they achieved a successful budget and operational budget balance (OBB) in 2024, setting an example for other Caribbean governments.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFIA) received a High-Performance Government Award for its swift transition from a paper-based procurement process to a fully electronic system during the pandemic. SFIA faced the challenge of moving templates, boilerplate management, and approvals online while discontinuing custom software that was no longer supported by IT. The haste was compounded by the need to shut down the outdated server by January 2024. To meet this challenge, SFIA turned to OpenGov Procurement to develop digital templates for easier updates and an electronic, form-based process to replicate their older system. Now, SFIA has successfully used OpenGov for its first low-bid procurements, marking a significant milestone for the PCS team, enabling them to retire the old system and shut down the server this summer.
City of Santa Cruz, CA
The City of Santa Cruz, CA, secured a High-Performance Government Award for successfully modernizing its procurement process using OpenGov Procurement. Before making the switch, solicitations were created using Word document templates, saved as PDFs, and manually posted online—which was time-consuming and caused delays. Wanting to issue competitive solicitations online faster, the City knew it was time for a more efficient solution. By partnering with OpenGov, Santa Cruz transformed its procurement process, training 118 city staff (up from just 3 before OpenGov) and expanding its vendor network to over 12,000 (from approximately 4,000). Today, the City significantly increased the number of formal solicitations, issuing over 60 in just the first 9 months of FY2024, compared to 33 in FY2023.
High-Performance Partners
Comcate, High-Performance Technology Partner
The inaugural recipient of this award, Comcate, is recognized for demonstrating exceptional innovation, technical excellence, and an unwavering commitment to enhancing customer value through transformative solutions. Over the last 12 months, Comcate has provided exceptional insights and support, value-based selling, and robust partner deployment. Through proactive communication and strategic engagement, their solutions have significantly impacted customer outcomes, reliability, performance, and security.
England-Thims & Miller, High-Performance Services Partner
England-Thims & Miller earned the inaugural High-Performance Services Partner Award for their exceptional collaboration, performance, and dedication to achieving our shared project goals over the past 12 months. They have consistently delivered remarkable project outcomes and customer satisfaction by showcasing high technical expertise and innovative problem-solving. Through their commitment to service quality, responsiveness, and effective collaboration, they have played a crucial role in enhancing customer success.
Congratulations to all the 2024 award winners! Whether harnessing data, bringing residents together, streamlining workflows, or promoting transparency, each winner has undoubtedly been a testament to what happens when you combine ambitious municipalities with modern solutions: a more efficient and effective high-performance government.
To learn more about how OpenGov can help your government become more efficient and effective for staff and residents, request a demo today.