Dodge County Continues To Explore Options To Broadcast Board Meetings

(Juneau) The Dodge County Boards Executive Committee was recently updated on plans to broadcast the monthly county board meetings. Last month, IT Directory Justin Reynolds began researching the best way to broadcast meetings.

Reynolds says his department looked at county websites within the state with populations greater than 40-thousand as well as the procedures for cities and villages in Dodge County. He says their findings showed that 90-percent of the sites provided online packets or minutes to review, 50-percent had integrated calendars to check what time and where meetings were being held, roughly 30-percent offered teleconferencing options while 65-percent had live video broadcasting.

The IT Department did reach out to Charter Communications to discuss a public access channel but Reynolds noted that the industry is very fluid and could be difficult to provide to constituents. He says several solutions he is preliminary recommending include an archive video or audio files uploaded after the meetings, live transcripts which would work similar to closed captions and utilize voice-to-text software as well as live video or audio conferencing.

Cost impacts could vary depending upon which solution the county takes with video or live service options falling in the higher end while pre-recorded and audio files would be more economical. County Board Chairman Russ Kottke says the more dollars and cents approach right now would be to go with audio. No timeline for the project was given but Reynolds is working on potential cost impacts for this year’s budget.