Case Study: Borough of Belmar, NJ achieves streamlined OPRA processing and improved interdepartmental coordination with NextRequest

How this tiny New Jersey borough is elevating their OPRA process

The Borough of Belmar, NJ, a one‑square‑mile Jersey Shore community that triples in size during summer, relied on a manual OPRA process and faced tracking, time‑management, and redaction challenges. Municipal Clerk April Claudio — who juggles five roles — and her team searched for over two years before selecting NextRequest’s record‑request management solution to replace paper workflows and better handle roughly 200 annual OPRA requests.

NextRequest automated Belmar’s request workflow and enabled coordinated use across Administration, Finance, Police, and Public Works for tracking, reminders, and redactions. As a result, Belmar has processed 528 requests all‑time, made 60% of documents public, and recorded 3,547 total document downloads, delivering faster coordination and measurable transparency improvements via NextRequest.

Borough of Belmar, NJ

April Claudio

Municipal Clerk