Lee County, FL

In a region where flood resilience is a cornerstone of public safety, Lee County, Florida, faces a uniquely complex flood management landscape. Managing an environment that is as dynamic as it is vulnerable requires more than just following regulations; it requires a proactive, forward-thinking approach to governance.

As the Floodplain Management and Community Rating System (CRS) Coordinator for Lee County, Billie Jacoby’s mission is clear: ensure the community remains resilient, compliant, and well-informed. Maintaining a CRS Class 5 rating is no small feat - it puts Lee County in the top tier of communities nationwide and requires a rigorous commitment to public safety education, compliant construction, and meticulous record-keeping. To maintain this standard, Billie’s team manages everything from daily permitting to the complex regulations that follow major storm events.

The Challenge: "Several Hands in the Pot" 

Before partnering with Forerunner, even a high-performing team like Lee County’s faced a common municipal hurdle: fragmented data. Elevation Certificates (ECs) and floodplain inquiries were flowing in through various channels, handled by different departments, and stored in multiple locations.

"The biggest problem was a lack of consistency," Billie explains. "We had several places where someone could submit an EC and several staff members were involved. We were constantly trying to track down who touched a document and where they put it. It was hard to get information to the people who needed it."

Without a "single source of truth," the team spent significant time on manual "detective work" - searching through maps, databases, inboxes, and disparate folders to find answers for residents and surveyors. This lack of a centralized system made it difficult to provide the immediate, consistent answers that the public expected.

Creating a One-Stop Shop

Lee County didn’t need a tool to do their job for them; they needed a platform that could keep pace with their high standards for compliance. By implementing Forerunner, the County was able to consolidate their disparate data into a single, accessible platform.

Forerunner acts as a centralized dashboard, pulling together the County’s maps, flood data, and historical documents into a single, property-level view. Beyond internal efficiency, they also have a public website. This portal allows residents, property owners, real estate professionals, and builders to search for property-specific information themselves, lowering the barrier to critical data.

The shift changed the dynamic of how the team operates:

• Internal Consistency: Staff no longer have to hunt through five different places for a single piece of information.
• Direct Surveyor Submissions: Surveyors now upload ECs directly through the public site. While the transition required a shift in habit, the transparency has eliminated the "did you receive this?" phone calls.
• Centralized Public Communication: All inquiries are filtered through a "Get Help" tool, ensuring that no request gets lost in a private inbox.

The ROI: 16 Hours Reclaimed Every Week

The impact of this partnership is most visible in the team's capacity. By reducing redundancy and eliminating manual tracking, Lee County saves approximately 16 hours of staff time per week, which translates into 832 hours in a year (over 100 working days!).  This efficiency allows the team to pivot from administrative "detective work" back to high-value community resilience projects and CRS maintenance. Instead of spending time reconciling records across spreadsheets and systems, staff can focus on activities that directly support residents - maintaining accurate records, strengthening floodplain compliance, and advancing long-term mitigation initiatives.

The Future: Bridging the Gap with Accela

Lee County is now looking toward further expansion of their usage of Forerunner. Billie is currently leading the charge to integrate Forerunner with their permit management software, Accela, which will further bridge the gap between floodplain management and the broader permitting process.

"Right now, we are looking at all of our processes and finding ways to refine them," says Billie. 

Once implemented, the Forerunner–Accela integration will create a seamless flow of data between systems. Elevation Certificates and floodplain information recorded in Forerunner will automatically populate within the County’s permitting workflows, eliminating duplicate data entry and reducing the need for staff to manually reconcile records across platforms. The result is a shared, reliable source of truth for inspectors, plan reviewers, and floodplain administrators - ensuring that critical flood data is always accessible at the moment it’s needed while freeing up staff time for higher-value resilience work.

Leading the Way

When asked what she would tell neighboring communities considering a change, Billie’s advice is simple: "It’s resolved so many hiccups in our workflows. It’s a one-stop shop for information and I don’t have to look in five different places for information anymore."