Kissimmee Paved the Way for Lien Requests

Kissimmee, Florida by the Numbers

85,141

Residents

2,000

Lien Requests per Year

93

JustFOIA Users Across 28 Departments

70%

Reduction in Processing Time

Located 15 miles south of Orlando, the City of Kissimmee, FL, knows that rapid growth brings both challenges and opportunities for governments that want to increase efficiency.

From 2010 to 2018, Kissimmee’s population grew by 26%. As part of this growth, their staff faced an explosion in property lien search requests.

When property transactions occur in Florida, title companies typically need to verify if properties have outstanding liens before closing. For municipalities, this is both an essential service and potential revenue stream.

But Kissimmee’s approach to processing lien searches was labor-intensive and inefficient. With approximately 2,000 lien searches per year, the manual nature of this work created significant operational strain.

Relief came from an unexpected source: A software purchased for an entirely different process.

Read on to discover how Deputy City Manager Austin Blake and City Clerk Tameara Crespo benefit from this innovative JustFOIA use case.

The Manual Process: Before JustFOIA

Prior to implementing JustFOIA, Kissimmee’s lien search process was entirely manual.

Austin recalled, “We would fax or email requests for outstanding liens on properties. Emailing and coordinating responses from each department individually to request searches for records and collect responses was incredibly time consuming.”

The City Clerk had to personally sign off on each document. Payment processing was equally cumbersome. Austin described: “The payment process for the requester required them to mail a check, or we’d have to call the finance department to pay with their credit cards by phone.”

The JustFOIA Solution

The City of Kissimmee implemented JustFOIA to process public records requests in late 2018. But it wasn’t long before Austin noticed that it also had all the features needed to track lien requests:

JustFOIA is so easy to use that Austin created the forms and workflows necessary to process lien requests on his own.

Financial Impact

Austin said, “Modifying our business processes eliminated expenses for our departments, and our operational costs are much lower because we put effort into finding technology that works for multiple areas of business.”

In the first six months using JustFOIA for lien requests, the City collected $40,000 in revenue from the process. By early 2025, they had collected a total of over $548,000.

Efficiency Gains

Austin estimated that the time it takes to search for data reduced by approximately 70% after the portal went live.

Tameara added: “One of the biggest wins has been how quickly we can now process the searches. With automated internal routing and built-in communication tools, the right people are looped in immediately, and the entire process stays within the system—no more lost emails or status confusion.”

Payment Processing Improvements

The payment portal has been a game-changer. Austin noted: “It is unbelievable how easy it has made it for our Finance Department to verify payments via authorize.net – matching the balances with JustFOIA reports from the payment portal.”

Tameara highlighted another key benefit: “One of the biggest advantages to using JustFOIA is the ability to generate our own invoices directly within the system. This functionality allows us to apply the rates specific to our city, ensuring accuracy and compliance with our policies—without relying on external systems or manual calculations.”

Document Management Benefits

The system has helped Kissimmee move toward paperless operations: “With JustFOIA, we can upload response documents directly into the system, keeping everything organized and accessible,” said Tameara. “Even better, we can communicate directly with requesters through the platform, ensuring clear, timely updates and a better overall experience for the public.”

“The greatest benefit has increased situational awareness for everything that is going on. Sometimes, there are multiple team members working on a request. If it was done in individual email accounts, we couldn’t see the progress. JustFOIA allows a 30,000-foot view of progress with all requests within the system. We can determine why things are bottlenecking to move things forward. In Development Services, there are so many divisions and responsibilities – imagine if five people were assigned to one request. Each division is now a department within the system, so the requests are being routed efficiently. Our process will continue to evolve, and JustFOIA gives us the opportunity to evolve!”

Austin Blake

Deputy City Manager

Why This Matters for Florida Cities

Lien search processing is a common challenge for Florida municipalities. With the volume of real estate transactions in the state, efficiently managing these requests represents both an opportunity to improve service and generate revenue.

“JustFOIA gives you an opportunity to bring situational awareness, improves the efficiency of your request process, and streamlines the payment process as well,” Austin said.

Tameara added: “Overall, JustFOIA has helped us improve transparency, boost internal collaboration, and deliver better service to our residents, faster. It’s not just a software—it’s a smarter way to work.”

Kissimmee’s experience offers a compelling roadmap to greater efficiency, better customer service, and increased revenue generation.