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| | 1. | | Call to order.
Minutes note: The meeting was called to order at 1:16 p.m. | | | |
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| | 2. | | Roll call.
Minutes note: Present - Larson, Siettmann, Roedel, Jaeger, Madison, Meyer-Stearns, Owczarski, Schroeder, Zimmer, Richter, Henke, Spiker
Charles Roedel serving as member in place of David Klein for this meeting.
Also present:
Brad Houston, City Records Center Manager
Peter Block, Assistant City Attorney
James Bohl, DOA - Innovation Director
Steve Weissman, Holly Group
Travis Noll, JusAppraised | | | |
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| | 3. | | Review and approval of the previous meeting minutes from September 4, 2025.
Minutes note: The meeting minutes from September 4, 2025 were approved without objection. | | | |
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| | 4. | | Records Retention.
Minutes note: a. Presentation by Steve Weissman, lead consultant at the Holly Group, relating to data governance.
Mr. Weissman introduced himself as a best practices consultant, industry consultant, and instructor for over 25 years with professional credentials, experience, and roles in the area of information governance.
Mr. Weissman gave a presentation on data governance and records management being two sides of one coin. The encounter between data and records was anything but casual. It could be alluded to an encounter between a boy and a girl as described in the poem "Comin' Thro' the Rye" (written in 1784 by Robert Burns). All physical assets were surrounded by and consisted of a sea of information, much like an industrial site picture of cranes, pipes, steel beams and the like. Each of those physical assets contained information associated with it about the manufacturer, size and specification, part number, department-specific information and other data. The pile of data would only grow further. Information was everywhere at an industrial site, movie theater, and anywhere one would go.
Each piece of information existed in business records that attested to the buying, billing, manufacturing, inventorying, and countless other processes involving the parts involved. Most of it was stored on paper in boxes that filled rooms, line hallways, and shipped off. An ever-accelerating proportion was also living in electronic databases. No longer bound by the old "paper vs. electronic" construct of information management, organizations were struggling to rewrite the rules in the current environment of routinely mixed structured and non-structured information. Information governance was being treated separately due to a general lack of appreciation that it was an unified whole. Information grew up being viewed separately in different systems and geographies, leading to duplication and variation, and in questionable provenance and pedigree.
Records, documents, and data were finally coming together as information practices. Each was involved in business practices that were fundamentally similar to all the others. There was fertile ground for discussion throughout the enterprise, including among compliance officers, attorneys, line-of-business managers, IT staff, and records staff. The overlaps were not new. The disciplines of records, content, document, information, and data management were essentially the same across the board even down to critical targeted areas like privacy. There was an open question of whither records (the business unit) whether they lived in HR, legal, and/or IT.
Information was as valuable an asset as the others in any operation, all of which had their own departments to manage them. Someone should govern information assets the same way as HR would govern human assets, finance would govern fiscal assets, and IT would govern technology assets. Whether structured or unstructured, all information must be findable, shareable, retained/disposed of by policy, private, secure, migratable, and AI ready. Information must be governed in light of its impact on controls and how it would affect one's operations. There was plenty of common ground and shared experience.
Information governance shared twin objectives to reduce risk and unlock opportunities. Reducing risk included mitigating the risk of destruction in a natural disaster by identifying critical information and moving it out of harm's way; minimizing the risk of incurring fines for having violated privacy and security structures; and reducing the risk of violating the rules of retention and other compliance practices by losing in boxes and warehouses. Unlocking opportunities included saving time and money when undergoing migration by designing and scaling infrastructure to support more ready access, findability, shareability, and leveragability of needed information; and getting maximum value from AI by improving the quality of the information inputted into it, the results outputted, and the expected business outcomes.
Information governance was about solving specific problems such as shortening FOIA request response times, improving resident self-service, streamlining meeting transcriptions, lessening the need for physical storage space, protecting personal privacy, increasing staff efficiency, facilitating compliance with state regulations, and enhancing relevance of search results and accuracy of information provided. Of importance was the information (structured and unstructured) regardless of delivery, format, medium, or location. There should be focus on the care and feeding of information, which was what information governance was all about. Clients have realized information was an asset to be acquired, protected, and leveraged.
Anyone could start anywhere and everywhere on a road map to address information governance. A typical road map would include strategy setting; current state analysis and maturity modeling; needs and gap analysis and road maps; policy, process, program building and improvement; technology assessment; and maintenance and optimization. There should be a return loop, no more than two years, to reengage these components. The time for information governance was now with more information coming everyday, which would increase work. There was opportunity, good technology, and AI.
Mr. Houston said that today's presentation was about Mr. Weissman, a subject matter expert, articulating the importance of data governance. All data systems were interconnected. There was opportunity to do more in data governance with the City's data systems. Work Day and the RFP for an ERMS system in 2026 were part of the City's road map.
Mr. Weissman added that he was excited for the City.
b. Proposed departmental record schedules for review and/or approval.
Mr. Houston gave an overview. Schedules were less this cycle. Schedules included 4 new, 2 amendments, and 35 closes. The majority of the closed schedules were from DPW and the Health Dept. due to being replaced by global schedules, being obsolete, or being consolidated. The new schedule for DNS was for vacant building registration files with a disposition of 5 years after a building becomes no longer vacant. The amended schedule for DPW was for engineer certificates (used to compute and provide supporting documentation for special assessments) with a disposition of 12 years. There was a new Health Dept. schedule for establishment inspection files with a disposition of 5 years that would allow for more timely destruction of obsolete electronic records. There was an amended Health Dept. schedule for epidemiology campaign files related to responses and activities surrounding communicable infectious diseases. The schedule was widen to apply to all epidemiology campaign records with a disposition of 2 years followed by transfer to City archives at the Milwaukee Public Library.
Member Meyer-Stearns moved approval, seconded by member Schroeder, of the record retention schedules. There was no objection.
c. Update on State Records Board approval of previous schedules.
Mr. Houston said that all schedules approved by the committee from the last meeting were approved by the State Records Board with one change in the disposition of permanent to transfer to archival for the new schedule related to Slavery Era Business and Profit Disclosures from the City Purchasing Division. | | | |
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| | 5. | | Information and Technology Management Division.
Minutes note: a. Discussion on trial of AI Assistant Technology for the Unified Call Center.
Vice-chair Henke commented. ITMD and the Innovation Division was exploring ways to technologically improve the UCC's service delivery and response intake model with AI. The goal was to reduce call intake wait times, add some automation and efficiencies, and address limited staffing. They found a potential product solution with the vendor, JustAppraised. Their technology was cost effective and offered multiple communication channels. The human element of the UCC would not be eliminated. JustAppraised was invited to the meeting to present their Front Desk product.
Mr. Bohl commented. The UCC and MKE Mobile App had no robust way of tracking and monitoring inquiries and communications. They looked at four different companies and were impressed with JustAppraised whose produce would serve the UCC in multiple functional ways. Staffing of the 286-CITY line was a concern. A voice AI system like Front Desk would supplement the UCC's vulnerabilities and add better tracking and feedback.
Mr. Noll presented. He co-founded JustAppraised 10 years ago. They served over 300 counties and 30 states nationwide to improve residential call centers and public agencies. Milwaukee has one front desk to respond to hundreds of requests with no unified systems. Front Desk was a voice AI-powered platform that helps public agencies to automate manual work, integrate systems like Accela and GIS, and deliver faster, more transparent constituent service. Front Desk would align with the City's strategic goals of improving resident and employee access to information and services, expanding data dashboards & analytics, refining service delivery through technology for process improvement, and supporting equity-focused initiatives. Front Desk would create a centralized portal for all requests (phone, email, chat, or walk-in); track call volume, response time, and service metrics in real-time for leadership visibility; automate repetitive requests and routes tasks to the right team to save hours weekly, and delivers 24 / 7 multilingual support and consistent
service across departments.
The Front Desk proposal for the UCC would include multiple channels for calls, SMS, email, and website chat; multi-lingual languages with English and Spanish; integrations with Accela x 2 and in-house systems; knowledge base with website content and existing training manuals; and reporting and analytics. The guiding principles of the system were to provide direct easy escalations to staff, be a tool and not a replacement for human empathy, and have a crawl-walk-run model (slow implementation at first to build trust before expanding).
Mr. Noll gave a demonstration of Front Desk regarding use of its interface, voice AI, transcript log with a resident, generation of a reference number, customer survey rating feature, ability to summarize a communication, trigger updates, various organization tools (by teams, conversations, resident contact), other channels (email, SMS), internal notes feature, and ability to report (response times, number of calls, created vs. resolved data).
Members questioned the use of Front Desk by the UCC, the RFP process, the role of the committee, channels beyond voice, cost, adding other languages (Hmong and Rohingya), and ability to make financial transactions.
Ms. Shapera, vice-chair Henke, and Mr. Bohl replied. Front Desk was not being used or acquired yet. The goal was for members to be acquainted with the product. With buy-in, the product would be acquired on a trail and pilot basis for the new year. There was internal review from ITMD, UCC, and the Innovation office resulting in finding Front Desk as being the most impressive and refined product with experience. A pilot would cost $10,000. They would have a crawl (slow implementation) approach for a pilot before expanding and using additional features. The return on investment was high.
Mr. Noll replied. There was no intent to bait and switch. Costs after the pilot period would be $40,000 a year capped at a 5% increase. There were peer cities that were using Front Desk such as Hillsborough, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts. They have services jurisdictions larger than Milwaukee's population (600,000). They had the ability to add additional languages but relied on existing business products; however, they would be challenged with languages like Hmong where there was not enough existing voice data and existing business products. They would have to go into the community, record conversations, and do training. There would be added cost to do so. There was capability to make financial transactions, but that was not presently proposed.
Chair Spiker said that the policy decision to use Front Desk should be made by the Common Council as its use would become public knowledge even if it was to be used internally.
Vice-chair Henke said that today's discussion was to get feedback. He would have a communication file before the Finance and Personnel Committee before doing a trial. A trial would entail the UCC and elected officials as a test run before becoming live publicly.
Mr. Houston said that he was concerned about the creation of records, public record requests and responses, and data retention with such a system.
Atty. Block questioned an escalating costs and said that the contract with JustAppraised should be reviewed by his office (City Attorney).
Mr. Noll said that they would be flexible to the City's preference whether the City would want no retention, retention of summary data, or full retention. They could do retention for 10 years or less. There would be no upfront commitment. A trial would be a minimum of 6 months. The City could choose to opt-in or insert contract language of their choosing when doing a contract.
Vice-chair Henke said that the communication channels used in Front Desk would be the same channels under existing record retention schedules.
Chair Spiker said that he would further meet offline with the group involved to work on being intentional and to inform the Common Council, and he questioned if savings from temporary overflow staff to the UCC could be used towards funding the pilot.
Ms. Shapera said that the funding source of those temporary staff was from the Transportation Fund, which could not be used towards the pilot. Another funding source would need to be identified.
b. Update on the adoption of cyber liability insurance.
Vice-chair Henke gave an update. Adoption of cyber liability insurance was an audit recommendation from the Comptroller's Office. After a number of years cyber liability insurance for the City was acquired on October 27, 2025, was at a cost effective rate, and had a $5,000 limited liability . The City Attorney's Office was involved. The insurance policy was active, had a number of coverage types listed, covered scanning of external assets, and would look at vulnerabilities.
Chair Spiker questioned the department responsible for the cost.
Member Meyer-Stearns inquired about coverage of the Library's external scanning, which was separate from ITMD.
Vice-chair Henke and member Siettmann replied that payment for the policy was through a SPA from the City Attorney's Office, who holds the policy. The policy is citywide, and he can share the policy with departments. The policy would cover the Library's external scanning, and there would be further discussion with the Library. For any cyber security incident, the cyber insurance company would get notified first of any incident.
c. Update on grant-funded cyber security updates.
Vice-chair Henke gave an update. They had successfully acquired an End Point detection grant, and an update was deployed to Black Carbon at the end of October. They were also recently awarded close to $100,000 in grant funds to implement contactless smart card readers for the Department of Emergency Communication's dispatch center, which would become MFA complaint. They were pursue additional grant opportunities and explore expanding contactless smart card readers to other departments, such as the Library.
Member Siettmann said that the grant focused on high security areas; therefore, the 9-1-1 call center and the Police Dept. were the ones involved.
Member Larson added that the Police Dept. was upgrading their card reader to add more bandwidth.
d. Update on the 2026 cyber security training schedule.
Ms. Siettmann gave an update. There was a schedule starting in January 2026 describing monthly planned trainings on various cyber security topics as well as quarterly phishing trainings. Work Day testing would commence in May 2026. Trainings would better commence if they were to occur when Work Day was active. Work Day would better track training (or lack thereof) of employees. At a minimum perhaps training should start after January. A delay would also provide more time for preparation for the trainings. There was discussion with DER to make the trainings a part of Health Rewards. A question was whether to make the trainings mandatory or optional for employees. Presently, about 2,500 employees have not completed their annual October cyber security training.
Mr. Houston concurred that it made sense to wait for Work Day, which would mandate trainings.
Chair Spiker said that he would not want to lose half a year to wait for Work Day to begin the trainings.
Members discussed that the trainings schedule start in February instead of January and that all trainings be mandatory for City employees.
e. Update on the 2026 deployment of GovAI.
Vice-chair Henke gave an update. The GovAI pilot would conclude by year's end. It was recommended to do a full employment of GovAI for 2026 starting in January or February in phases. There would be onboarding, beta testing, training, feedback collection from users and managers in the first few months followed by expansion to more departmental users and custom specifications made. GovAI would then be made available to all City staff.
Chair Spiker said that there should be a prepared communication, including information on the pilot process, made to the Common Council and that the expectation was for all citywide IT systems to be reviewed by the CIMC committee.
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| | 6. | | Review and approval of the 2026 meeting schedule.
Minutes note: 2026 meeting dates and times were presented as follows:
Thursday, March 5, 2026 at 10 a.m.
Thursday, June 4, 2026 at 10 a.m.
Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 10 a.m.
Thursday, December 3, 2026 at 1 p.m.
Member Schroeder moved approval, seconded by member Roedel of the 2026 meeting schedule. There was no objection.
Chair Spiker said that meetings would continue to be in-person with exceptions made for virtual participation, as necessary. | | | |
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| | 7. | | Next steps.
Minutes note: a. Agenda items for the next meeting.
Mr. Houston requested to review the City's Generative AI policy to explore updates to the policy considering the use of GovAI. Sensitive information and records were some concerns. Also requested was to review the integration of data governance into the charge of the CIMC committee.
b. Next meeting date and time.
Thursday, March 5, 2026 at 10 a.m. | | | |
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| | 8. | | Adjournment.
Minutes note: Meeting adjourned at 3:24 p.m.
Chris Lee, Staff Assistant
Council Records Section
City Clerk's Office | | | |
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| | | | Meeting materials for this meeting can be found within the following file: | | | |
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251285
| 0 | | Communication | Communication relating to the matters to be considered by the City Information Management Committee at its December 4, 2025 meeting. | | | |
Action details
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