Drafts of documents may originate in various departments or in the Mayor’s Office and are first submitted to the Office of Policy and Budget for editing. Documents may undergo this process of editing several times before they are actually submitted to the Mayor for approval. Each document must conform to the standard formats as described later in this document.
2. Approval
Each policy, executive order, or administrative rule must be approved by the Mayor according to the procedure established by the Mayor. Once that process has been followed and the policy is signed and dated by the Mayor, the Mayor’s Office will send the signed original to the responsible person in the Office of Policy and Budget who will forward the signed original to the Recorder’s Office, and an electronic copy to the responsible person at IMS, requesting that the document be published. Procedures require only the approval of the department or division director from which the procedure was generated. The Office of Policy and Budget will make necessary edits, obtain the approval of the relevant department or division director, and forward the document to IMS and the Recorder, with a copy to the submitting department or division director.
3. Request to IMS
Once a document is approved, the Office of Policy and Budget requests via email to IMS to publish the document in the City document repository. The main body of the requesting email should include an electronic copy of the policy in Microsoft Word format, and if changes are being made to an existing document, a detailed description of what changes need to be made to which document. If the email consists of a thread of several emails discussing changes, the final email to IMS should contain at the top a detailed summary of what changes are necessary to prevent omissions or misunderstandings of the discussions of the email thread. The body of the email should also contain any necessary information that is not included in the attached document, such as the approval date of the document by the Mayor or the effective date of procedures.
4. Publication
Upon receipt of the requesting email, IMS will review the document and accompanying documentation to ensure it conforms to the standard formats as describes in section V. Formatting, below, and will append necessary information, such as approval/effective dates, or revision notes and dates. If the IMS representative reviewing the formatting deems any portion of the document to be inaccurate or incompatible with the standard formats, the document will be returned to the submitter requesting resolution of the problems, or direction for resolving the problems.
Upon receipt of the requesting email, IMS will make best possible efforts in all cases to publish the document within 24 hours.
IMS will make, in all cases, best possible efforts to ensure the accuracy and consistency of all documents in the City document repository, and will be responsible for maintaining the system of publication, including the display of documents, links to any other documents, and consistency of formatting. The accuracy of the content of the documents will remain the responsibility of the Office of Policy and Budget and/or the submitting department.