Government agencies of all types need better ways to manage, access, store, secure, and retrieve information in order to better serve their constituents.
Increasing the efficiency with which you process your structured and unstructured content can greatly improve your business workflow, customer service, and compliance requirements.
Over the last several years I have met with many government agencies, and the story is pretty much the same. Budgets are tight, customer service is paramount, and everyone is drowning in paper. However, there is hope.
The beauty about a document management system is that it is scalable. Meaning an agency can make a one-time investment that usually pays for itself pretty quickly, and then expand the system into other departments with minimal costs. A good system is going to easily control access to documents by type or group. This means that one department can see their documents, but not another department's documents.
There are many good case studies that can give an idea of where to start, and I am including a couple for your consideration.
Jason
Link: Douglas County Case Study (PDF)
Link: City of Richland Case Study (PDF)