Paperless Government

The Town of Stratford Prince Edward Island, which is about a 15 minute drive from my home here in Charlottetown, has decided to go paperless. Town council approved a motion on Wednesday night to move all of its documents to electronic format. The town has commissioned a British Columbia based company to provide the software to enable them to archive and retrieve all of its letters, reports, agendas, budgets, etc. through a secure internet portal. The system will cost the town $6000 to install and another $6000 annually to operate and maintain. Stratford's Finance Chair, Emile Gallant points out "If I want to go on and do a search for a letter that we got eight months ago, I don't have to call staff or go looking for it." I don't know about you, but I don't think the paperless thing would work entirely for me as I tend to print and read the large documents! It would be interesting to get councils feedback on the system in 6 months time. CBC Story here.