Big Spring, Texas
The County Seat of Howard County Cuts its Budget Book Creation Time by 75%

Primary Objective

Modernize budget book and capital budgeting from paper to platform

To eliminate manual, paper-based budgeting processes and adopt a streamlined, accessible, and ADA-compliant digital platform.

Challenge

A Budget Held Together by PDFs and Patience 

Located in west Texas, the City of Big Spring’s budgeting process long relied on a heavily manual, time-consuming system involving hundreds of Microsoft Word and Excel files. The city compiled these into PDFs to create its annual budget book. If any aspect of the budget changed, multiple parts of the document—including department pages, fund summaries, totals, and the table of contents—had to be updated separately and manually. This led to frequent errors, redundant work, and long hours, often stretching into weekends.

One particularly frustrating aspect was maintaining the table of contents. Any structural changes to the document required Gary Givens, Assistant Finance Director of Big Spring, to rebuild the table of contents manually. Capital budgeting was equally inefficient, with department requests submitted on printed Word documents that were easy to lose track of.

What we really liked about ClearGov was that the numbers flow together and create reports that automatically update.

Solution

One Demo, Two Modules, and a Clear Path Forward 

The city began exploring digital solutions after realizing their existing process was no longer sustainable. Most alternatives were priced out of reach. City staff heard about ClearGov after asking other municipalities what they were using. After seeing a ClearGov demo, Big Spring was impressed by the platform’s functionality and value.

Initially, the city implemented ClearGov’s Digital Budget Book to address the pain of manual compilation. They later added Capital Budgeting, drawn to how seamlessly the modules integrated. One standout feature was the way data updates in one part of the system automatically flowed through to reports and charts, eliminating the redundancy they faced before.

The city council had previously preferred a particular format for the PDF budget book. During the first year of implementation, the team used both ClearGov and a parallel PDF version to accommodate that preference. But thanks to ClearGov’s flexibility, the city plans to rely exclusively on ClearGov moving forward.

Implementation

From Blank Slate to Budget Book in Under Three Weeks 

Despite having no prior experience with ClearGov, Givens was able to build a working Digital Budget Book from scratch in under three weeks. The onboarding experience was smooth and efficient. Gary worked with a ClearGov implementation manager and the data import team, both of whom understood the city’s account structure and guided the setup process. Still, most of the work was self-directed—ClearGov’s intuitive design made it easy for Givens to get started.

The city also took time to align the system with its chart of accounts, which helped replicate the structure of past budget documents and eased the transition for staff and leadership.

The process with the ClearGov support staff has been wonderful. They’re very fast at answering you and getting your data updated.

Results

75% Faster Budgeting, Happier Staff, and Stronger Collaboration

The City of Big Spring realized significant gains in both time savings and staff satisfaction after adopting ClearGov’s Digital Budget Book and Capital Budgeting solutions:

Key outcomes:

• Time savings of 75%: The budget book process now takes about one week, compared to a full month before ClearGov.
• Minimal training needed: Gary was able to build his first Digital Budget Book within three weeks. He anticipates that onboarding new staff will be just as straightforward.
• Improved morale and reduced stress: Gary noted that the transition to ClearGov lifted his own spirits and simplified his work significantly.
• Improved Collaboration: Departments are contributing goals and achievements directly into the budget book, improving ownership and transparency.
• Auto-generated Table of Contents and other pages: ClearGov eliminated the previously-dreaded task of manually assembling the Big Spring budget book’s table of contents, saving time and ensuring consistency.
• ADA compliance readiness: ClearGov ensures.

ClearGov helped Big Spring’s finance team stop focusing on long hours spent on manual updates and instead focus on telling their financial story. Our team of public finance experts are here to help your agency do the same.

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