By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
The final agenda item on the Committee of the Whole agenda Tuesday night for the City of Burlington Common Council didn’t involve any discussion.
It did, however, involve the eight council members as well as city staff members getting used to the new Samsung Galaxy Tablets that will be used to deliver council agendas and supporting documents.
The new tablets were originally proposed by the council as part of discussions to eliminate paper, save money and provide a web stream of City Council meetings.
While the live stream is still under discussion with Granicus – a government cloud service provider – the new tablets are now in the hands of aldermen, Mayor Bob Miller, Director of Administrative Services Megan Watkins, City Administrator Carina Walters, City Treasurer Steven DeQuaker, Fire Chief Perry Howard, and Library Director Gayle Falk.
The new Director of Public Works, when hired, will also received one, while Police Chief Mark Anderson opted out.
The city budgeted $10,000 for the purchase of the tablets as well as software for them. In going with the Samsung tablets, the city spent $4,275 on the tablets themselves, as well at committing $1,440 per year for Office 365 ($8 per month per user).
The city expects to save about $5,760 a year in terms of paper, staff time, copies and other supplies. The agendas and the packet items will also be uploaded to the city’s website at www.burlington-wi.gov.
Watkins trained the staff on the tablets at the council meeting, and said before the meeting that the new system is very “user-friendly.”
“I think they’ll be OK,” Watkins said of staff. “If they have a smartphone, they’ll be OK.”
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