Lisle Trustees Will Conduct Village Meetings By iPad

Choosing a  isn’t the only way the is working to reduce its carbon footprint. Trustees voted to go paperless Monday night, and will soon access meeting documents via iPad.

Trustees approved the purchase of eight iPads, which will be issued to the village’s six trustees, Mayor Joe Broda, and Village Clerk Timothy Seeden. They will have the ability to download board packets through the Village’s website and make notations through apps.

“There’s been a wave of local governments that have gone paperless,” said Administrative Services Director Eric Ertmoed. While trustees discussed the possibility of laptops, Ertmoed said they found iPads “less clunky than carrying a laptop around, and a little bit more mobile and user-friendly.”

Staff believe the move will ultimately save the village printing and delivery costs, as well as enforce the village’s green agenda.

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“We haven’t quantified what we’ll save in reams of paper,” Ertmoed said, “but I think if you look at the average packet, it’s a minimum of 50-100 pages… including bills lists and all the presentation items and attachments.”

With an average of three meetings each month, including workshops, that saves the Village more than 14,000 sheets of paper each year (assuming that each packet is the minimum 50 pages).

In addition to saving on print costs, the move to iPads will cut out staff time to deliver the packets to trustees.

Paper copies will still be printed for the village attorney and Village Manager Jerry Sprecher for each meeting. Final budgets and last-minute items will be e-mailed or printed off for review, Ertmoed said.

The purchase of iPads will not affect materials printed for other village committees, such as the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Ertmoed said trustees declined a service solution software called Boarddocs in favor of Microsoft Office. They’ll also be able to use Quickoffice Pro and IAnnotate for note-taking, and communicate through email. Notes taken on the devices will be regarded as preliminary draft notes, as they would be if a trustee were making the notation to a paper copy, Ertmoed said.

Ertmoed said staff haven’t had a conversation whether to allow additional apps to be downloaded to the devices.

While staff are projecting long-term savings and benefits, the move will set the Village back a little more than $6,000 for the initial purchase of the devices and accessories, and roughly $3,000 in annual data plans through Verizon.

Lisle isn't the only municipality in DuPage County to purchase iPads for their village board. Woodridge board members also use iPads to access meeting packets, according to Woodridge Village Clerk Jack Knight.

However, it seems that schools are the most obvious beneficiaries of the iPad's varied uses. Autism school Giant Steps has found that the devices provide both educational and therapeutic benefits to its students, according to a report from the Daily Herald. introduced iPads to its Early Childhood special education students at last October, according to the district website.

Woodridge School District 68's board of education purchased 12 ipads last year to curb the , according to Wooridge Patch. One board member believes the savings created by the iPad's purchase serves a community benefit.