VITAL RECORDS

With a population of nearly 38,000, Atlantic City receives more than 60 vital records requests and submissions per week . For years the city relied on mailed in paper forms to accept and process vital records requests.  Each request often took weeks to process a single application. Paper applications had to be mailed in, and would often be submitted incomplete or illegibly, causing headaches for city staff, and further delaying the process. Constituents were unable to contact the department by phone to check on the status of their application, so all correspondence had to be conducted via mail, further delaying the process. Payments were also submitted by mail resulting in delayed or lost payments to the city.  

The paper-based process required a number of manual tasks to be conducted which staff had to take the time to complete. New Jersey law requires that vital records documents be saved on site for a minimum of six years taking up physical space.

A key recommendation of the State of New Jersey’s 2018 transition report for returning Atlantic City to self-governance, was for the city to invest in software to manage and share data about services and analyze results. The Atlantic City Implementation plan drafted by the state’s Department of Community Affairs, detailed that, “such software should result in faster delivery of services provided to residents, greater transparency, faster data sharing between city departments and the public, and greater confidence in city government by residents and the broader community.”

Through a competitive process, officials from The State of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and Atlantic City thoroughly vetted and ultimately selected GovPilot as the enterprise government management software platform for the city. Atlantic City's Chief Information Officer, Patrick Quinlan worked closely with GovPilot's Customer Success team to deploy multiple modules across several of the city's departments and ensure adoption among employees. 

One department included the Registrar’s Office which is responsible for Vital Records. The city’s Registrar, Cassandra Boynton-Bell was eager to modernize her department. “GovPilot has moved Atlantic City’s Zoning Department into the 21st century, and has been a tremendous asset to us, especially as we have dealt with COVID”, said Walden. 

According to Mrs. Boynton-Bell, GovPilot has enabled the Vital Records Department to operate more efficiently and be more productive than it ever has in the past.

• Atlantic City Vital Records officials have enabled digital applications submission and digital payment through GovPilot to speed processing, sometimes in just a day.
• GovPilot enabled the Vital Records Department to continue operations throughout the COVID outbreak, even after city staff began working from home.
• Records are now stored digitally with GovPilot rather than physically in file boxes.