SALEM — City council is eyeing a new end-of-year report system.

In a meeting of the committee of the whole Tuesday, Councilwoman Sara Baer presented the other members of city council with an end-of-year report published by the city of Medina, suggesting that Salem could implement a similar system. Baer said that she felt presenting the city’s year-end information in a singular unified document rather than individual reports followed by an overall state of the city report would allow the city, and its semi-autonomous departments like the parks and utilities departments new ways to communicate their annual accomplishments.

“I found [the report] during a search I do of communities that I think are doing interesting things around the state and the report stood out to me for a number of reasons,” said Baer. “One is that it gives an opportunity for each department to tell their individual story each department lead has an opportunity to add photographs and highlights to the report, which is something that we don’t usually get out of the State of the City report.”

Baer also argued that having a consolidated document would make tracking and sharing that annual data from year to simpler and more efficient and noted that it would also improve transparency as the document could be made widely available on the city’s website or social media accounts.

“The data that’s in there is something that could be tracked year over year and then we would have this type of document to share with places like the [Sustainable Opportunity Development Center] so we wouldn’t have to spend a whole meeting going over the state of the city, we could just reference the document and use it as a benchmark for city council, and other stakeholders in our city government,” said Baer.

Councilman and Committee Chair Andrew Null said that he thought implementing a similar report would be “a great idea” and that it would be “a valuable document.” Null asked what the process for such a report would be and where the costs of producing such a document would be paid from. Baer said that she hadn’t contacted Medina to ask about the process of compiling and funding the report, but that anytime [she has] contacted a city, its been “very forthcoming with information on what software they use and what programs they use,” and that a call to Medina could provide that information. She also noted that even if that wasn’t the case the existing document could simply be used as a model for Salem to work from and develop its own template.

Councilman Jeff Stockman thanked Baer for her research and noted that the report would not necessarily require the level of production value and graphic design work present in Medina’s report. He felt it could be compiled “with very little cost” through merging individual department reports into a central document, with both Stockman and Baer noting it could be created through something as simple as Microsoft PowerPoint or a similar software. Councilman Evan Newman also agreed that a simpler true-digital document would be a better starting point, noting that he is familiar with how high graphic design costs can be from his work.

It was ultimately decided that Baer would discuss the matter further with Mayor Cyndi Baronzzi Dickey, and share the Medina report with SOD Center Executive Director Julie Needs to continue gathering information like a potential cost and to begin the process of potential implementation for 2026.