Three tiers. One provider. One monthly fee.

The district does — always. The records hub is a Google Workspace set up for your district, organised by year and document type and filed to the state retention schedule. It is the district’s property forever, even if you stop working with us.

Keep them — that is the design. The board’s Secretary stays the Secretary: they remain the officer of record who reviews and signs. We are never a statutory officer; we do the drafting, filing, posting and reminding behind them, so the office stops being a paperwork burden.

No. The Board Secretary provides administrative document preparation and board-secretary support. It does not provide legal advice, hold public funds, or serve as a statutory officer; contested matters are referred to the district’s attorney.

Anywhere in the United States, remotely. Every state has its own open meeting law and its own records retention schedule, and we build to yours rather than to a template — we read your state’s statute and schedule, and put a dated calendar in writing before the first meeting we work on. Where a state’s common practice and its statute differ, we work to the stricter reading. The shape of the obligation is set out on the compliance page.

For most small boards in one room, yes. Open meeting statutes generally require an accurate record of the actions a board takes — the motions, who moved and seconded, and how each member voted — rather than a word-for-word transcript of the discussion; the specific standard is set by your state’s statute, which we read before the first meeting. Those are the parts a recording captures best. If the room is difficult we supply a conference recorder at no charge, and a person, never software, writes the minutes. The full answer is on the compliance page.

Thirty minutes with both Cooper and James Munson, and you set the agenda: posting deadlines and open meeting timing, records retention, what your own bylaws require of the secretary, how the website and the posting work, or how boards commonly handle whatever you are handling. It is not a sales call — nothing is sold on it, and you keep every answer whether or not you go further. Anything contested still goes to your district’s attorney; we are not lawyers, and a free call does not change that. If you want it, the free first month is set up on the same call — nothing to sign, nothing to pay, and no follow-up if you would rather think about it.

Engagements are quoted to each district after the free first month, based on district size and document volume. They run between $2,000 and $6,000 per month, all-in — one provider, one monthly fee. Nothing is billed separately: not a second meeting in a month, not a hearing cycle, not a website change, not a records request. If your association referred you, mention it: association members receive a standing discount.

As one flat monthly line item, adopted once at budget time. The figure does not move with the month — an extra meeting, a hearing cycle, a website change, a records request and budget season are all inside it — so there is no hourly total to argue line by line at a public hearing and nothing to re-approve mid-year.

It is also worth looking at what the one line replaces. Districts commonly buy these pieces separately: someone to draft the documents, which is often the district’s own attorney at an attorney’s hourly rate; a website vendor; accessibility remediation when the site turns out not to meet the federal standard; and help with records and filing. Four contracts, four invoices, and nobody answerable for the gap between them. The published national rates and the arithmetic are on the home page.

The other half of the answer is capacity. What a small district needs is skilled administrative work a few days a month, and that is the position it usually cannot create — too small to justify a post, too specialised to hand to whoever has time. A retainer is how a district buys that capacity without adding a position or a payroll line. What it costs when this work is late, or wrong.