Every city has hundreds—sometimes thousands—of policies, plans, forms, and reports.
Most of them are scattered across departments, named inconsistently, difficult to find, and hard to maintain over time
Standard Municipal Index fixes that.
SMI is a structured numbering system that organizes all municipal documents into clear, logical categories.
It's not software, it's a methodology. Instead of searching through folders or guessing filenames, every document has a permanent, intuitive index number.
For Example:
👉 CFD 1121.22b – City Council Meeting Procedures
- Is filed in the 1000 series (Administration)
- Was last updated and approved in 2022
- Is the second version of this document in 2022.
It works the same way across your entire organization.
SMI organizes documents into “thousand-series” categories based on function:
- 1000 – Administration
- 2000 – Personnel
- 3000 – Finance
- 4000 – Community Development
- 5000 – Public Safety
- 6000 – Engineering
- 7000 – Public Works
- 8000 – Parks & Recreation
- 9000 – Boards & Commissions
- 10000 – External Affairs
Each document is assigned a number within its category—creating a system that is:
- Scalable – works for small towns and large cities
- Consistent – the same logic across all departments
- Flexible – adapts to your existing structure
SMI isn’t just about organization—it solves real operational problems:
Find anything instantly
No more digging through shared drives or asking around.
Create consistency across departments
Everyone uses the same structure and naming system.
Improve transparency
Documents can be indexed and published for easy public access.
Preserve institutional knowledge
When staff leave, the system stays intact.
Support audits, planning, and operations
Everything has a place—and stays there.
SMI was developed and implemented within the City of Cedar Falls as a complete index of:
- Policies
- Plans
- Reports
- Forms
- Agreements
- External reference documents
It is actively used as the city’s central document framework.
Explore a fully implemented municipal index:
- Complete category structure
- Hundreds of indexed documents
- Real-world organization across all departments
👉 View the Cedar Falls SMI Index (PDF)
👉 View SMI Management Policy (PDF)
SMI is designed to grow with your organization.
Start with a few departments—or implement it citywide.
Either way, you’ll end up with something every municipality needs:
A single, clear system for organizing everything