CLIENT NAME
Washoe County
AGENCY TYPE
County
AI MODELS EMPLOYED
Administration and Governance Model
Planning and Zoning Model
Public Meeting Model
Public guardianship Model
Public Records Request Model
Capital Projects Model
How Washoe County went all-in with Madison AI to build six purpose-built models, reclaiming 400+ staff hours and saving over $40,000 monthly.
Washoe County Assistant County Manager Dave Solaro is an engineer and architect by trade. He is passionate about ensuring that the County's engineers and planners can focus on the technical work they were hired to perform, rather than spending significant time on administrative and research tasks.
As a co-creator and strategic partner, Washoe County works closely with Madison AI to explore the real-world applications of generative AI in local government. Dave pushed to co-create a tool to streamline county operations and eliminate repetitive bottlenecks that constrained his team's productivity, such as manually compiling background sections for staff reports.
Washoe County’s Search for a Solution
With a population of approximately 500,000 and a staff of 3,000 employees across dozens of departments, Washoe County faced a significant operational challenge. The County's institutional knowledge was locked in 10-15 years of siloed documents, legacy systems, and the experience of long-tenured staff.
Instead of relying on open, internet-based AI tools that might use unverified data, Dave and the County chose to co-create a secure, purpose-built system with Madison AI. By ingesting their own clean, council-approved public records, Washoe County ensured that their AI assistants learned only from their finalized documents.
One County, Six Custom Workflows:
Going Beyond the Basic Chatbot
Managing a $522 million General Fund and dozens of departments requires more than a one-size-fits-all solution. Washoe County worked alongside Madison AI to build a comprehensive, enterprise-grade ecosystem that met their specific needs.
The County successfully deployed six distinct, purpose-built AI models. The rollout included a core administration and governance model featuring over 30 specific agents, along with planning and zoning, public meeting assistant, capital projects, public records request, and public guardianship models. This breadth of assistants and models ensures that whether an engineering department is pulling historical bid packages or the Public Guardian is handling sensitive information for judicial reports, the AI is tailored exactly to their workflows.
"As assistant county manager, I am not only juggling my own day-to-day responsibilities, but I’m supporting my team to advance their goals and projects. With how little time we have in each day to accomplish these tasks, it is an inefficient use of time to spend so much of it searching for documents.
At Washoe County, we prioritize efficiency without jeopardizing high-quality service to our residents. Thanks to Madison AI, we were able to achieve that, saving hundreds of hours a month."
Dave Solaro, Assistant County Manager
Results
$41,000+
Saved monthly in labor cost-avoidance
2,857
YEARLY Conversations held with Madison AI
50+
Staff members actively using Madison AI assistants
255
Staff reports drafted by Madison AI assistants
400+
Staff hours reclaimed per month
50,000+
Files and historical records made instantly searchable
The challenge
Years of siloed institutional knowledge
Washoe County’s institutional knowledge was stuck in 10 to 15 years of siloed documents and systems. Some of the County’s most pressing challenges were:
Misallocated Talent: County managers, planners, and clerks were spending countless hours assembling board memos and manually searching planning records, rather than actively delivering core services.
Knowledge Loss: Decades of knowledge regarding past decisions, relationships, and policies risked being lost.
Lengthy Reporting: Highly specialized departments, such as the Public Guardian's office, spent days manually compiling the necessary reports for the judicial system.
The solution
Hyper-efficient daily operations
Pinpointing Operational Friction: Instead of a generic rollout, County leadership pinpointed the exact administrative tasks that drained staff capacity, such as researching historical planning summaries and drafting staff reports.
Comprehensive Model Deployment: Madison AI led an end-to-end implementation featuring six purpose-built models to cover the vast array of County services.
Data Integrity and Security: To ensure accuracy, the system was built solely on Washoe County's approved records, using custom vector databases. The information is kept current through weekly auto-indexing.
Department-Wide Adoption: The deployment saw substantial uptake, with over 150 users adopting the system. Staff primarily used the AI for finance, budget and contracts, municipal code and regulations, and property, permits and planning.
Expanding to Complex Workflows: The County confidently expanded the technology into highly sensitive operational areas. This included the Public Guardian model, which securely generates complex judicial reports in a fraction of the time.
The impact
Over $40,000 in monthly cost avoidance.
Washoe County is fundamentally shifting how it preserves knowledge and operates day-to-day. By automating complex research, the County saves over 400 staff hours each month. This efficiency directly translates into over $40,000 in monthly cost avoidance. Most importantly, the county has successfully safeguarded its institutional memory, empowering its entire workforce to instantly access decades of approved decisions, data, and policy.
Beyond the metrics, this transformation is about the people of Washoe County. By stripping away hours of tedious administrative overhead, Dave and his team are ensuring that highly skilled planners, engineers, and public servants can dedicate their time to what truly matters: delivering reliable, high-quality services to their residents.
For Madison AI, this collaboration highlights the power of true co-creation. Building these solutions alongside Washoe County has proved that modernizing local government doesn't have to be a painful project; it can be an inspiring, agile, and highly rewarding partnership. By pushing Madison AI to develop highly specific, enterprise-grade tools, Washoe County didn't just solve its own administrative bottlenecks; it helped shape a pioneering blueprint that is now empowering local governments across the country to work smarter.
