WHY CODIFY?
Time and Efficiency. None of us seem to have enough time to accomplish all that is required of us in any given day. When any municipal employee has to waste precious time searching for information in ordinances that have not been codified or supplemented into a current code, this waste becomes exponential. Delays of this kind will always add to the municipality's cost of doing business. If it is the municipal solicitor doing the searching, it becomes more expensive. If it is a citizen waiting for the information, dissatisfaction is added to the frustration and expense. A well organized, up-to-date code book, available to municipal employees in both hard copy and electronic form, can completely alleviate this situation. When a municipality has a current code in place, municipal officials are able to more efficiently perform their daily tasks.
Law Suits. While the municipal cannot insulate itself from the possibility of a lawsuit, antiquated ordinances increase the likelihood of a successful action against the municipality. A review of the municipality's ordinances by a person experienced in that field greatly reduces the municipality's vulnerability. Likewise, a person working in the field of codification brings to such a review the experience and perspective gained in repetition of the process with multiple communities. Annual legislative reports provided by this company will also help the municipality stay up to date. Of course, Keystate Publishers, Inc., will be making recommendations only. Final approval always rests in the municipal governing body, acting on the advice and consent of the municipal solicitor.
Accessibility. Today's law demands that the citizens of a municipality and others have access to certain of its documents. In some cases tight time constraints are put on the public official to produce such documents. When ordinances are in a codified form, public officials are able to comply with records laws in a timely fashion. To that end, Keystate Publishers provide the municipality with hard cover code books for use both within the municipality and for sale to the public, booklets comprised of individual chapters of the code and the entire code in an electronic form on CD-rom for use within the municipality and for sale to the public.
HOW IT WORKS.
The following is an itemization of the steps as they occur in our usual process and a few highlights of the benefits of doing business with Keystate Publishers, Inc.:
Personal Service. The municipality makes available one copy of each ordinance. We can help with the process of copying the ordinances in order to speed commencement of the project. In addition, the municipality provides a list of resolutions and Keystate requests copies of pertinent resolutions and/or those which the municipality and Keystate have agreed are appropriate to include in the codification. In addition, we will review all minute books to identify all ordinances, and conduct further research and investigation as may be necessary to locate either the original enactments or copies thereof.
These ordinances and resolutions are then reviewed by one of our most experienced editors and a preliminary editorial report and proposed chapter scheme is presented to the municipality. A representative of Keystate meets with representatives of the municipality, explains the findings and chapter scheme and obtains approval to proceed on the basis proposed or as otherwise agreed. Also at this time, representatives of the municipality may request amendment to existing municipal ordinances, new enactments or repeals to be effected with the adoption of the code. Under Keystate's process this results in no additional billing to the municipality. Under some other codifier's process the municipality is not able to request amendments to existing ordinances until after presentation of the preliminary draft, thus resulting, many times, in substantial additional billing to the municipality. Other codifiers who include a similar but less comprehensive review often refer to the step as an "ordinance critique." This is the first step in the process and takes up to 30 days to complete from the date authorization to proceed is received from the municipality.
Well trained personnel and state of the art equipment provide you with the most cost-effective product. Once we have reviewed the ordinances and resolutions and received approval from the Township of our preliminary editorial report and proposed chapter scheme, we will do the actual process of codification; eliminating outmoded, superseded and repealed provisions and incorporating the present provisions into the various chapters in order to have a document that is the current law in your Township. This data will then be input to computer and printed out as the rough draft. The bulk of Keystate's work will be inputting the data and suggesting amendments and updates, as appropriate, to:
The rough draft will include our editorial report and a table showing the proposed disposition in the codification of each and every ordinance and pertinent resolution adopted by the municipality.1. Conform style and usage.
2. Conform titles of municipal officials, State and Federal agencies, etc., to current usage.
3. Provide for the establishment of fees by resolution and assemble a master fee resolution for consideration by the governing body. (This will place all the fees of the municipality on one schedule.)
4. Provide for the maximum penalties permitted by law for violation of various ordinances.
5. Incorporate all motor vehicle and traffic regulations into PennDOT's model motor vehicle and traffic ordinance.
6. Review all enactments for conformity to State and Federal law and controlling court decisions.Fast turnaround of the original manuscript. We will then deliver the rough draft and our review to the municipality for you to study. It will take approximately 30 days to produce the preliminary manuscript from the time the preliminary editorial report and chapter scheme is approved to delivery of the preliminary manuscript.Representatives of our firm are available to meet with municipal officials on an as needed basis. When the municipality is ready to discuss the preliminary manuscript we will set an appointment for an editorial conferences(s). The timing of this conference is completely at the option of the municipality. There is no time limit for the municipality to review the rough draft and recommendations and make changes as they see fit.Final Manuscript. After the municipality has reviewed the preliminary manuscript and requested any changes that they feel necessary, Keystate will then prepare a final manuscript, ready for adoption. The municipality then adopts the code in accordance with instructions to be provided. Keystate Publishers will never expose a municipality to the inherent liability and confusion of publishing an unadopted code of ordinances.Following adoption, we will print and bind the final published code. From the time we receive the adopting ordinance until delivery of the final published code takes 3 to 4 weeks.Computer copies of the code are provided. Update costs are guaranteed. We will furnish the code on CD-rom in .pdf format. .pdf stands for "portable document format," the most portable format in use today. It can be used as a stand alone CD, posted to a LAN or posted on the world wide web, at the municipality's choosing. In any form, the .pdf format provided is fully book marked, indexed and searchable. Our contract provides that we will perform updates at the request of the municipality for a 3-year period at a guaranteed cost. Our turnaround time is normally less than 30 days on updates.For details review our process.For more information please e-mail or call 1-800-483-1041.
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