Signal Mountain town manager uses ChatGPT for drafting policies, ordinances, and hiring
Signal Mountain Town Manager Matt Justice uses artificial intelligence regularly to write memos, draft ordinances and resolutions, and create job descriptions. The Chattanooga Times Free Press obtained over 500 pages of his exchanges with ChatGPT through an open records request.
Justice treats AI as a starting point, not a finished product. "It gives good bones or good foundation, but it's not complete," he said. "It's only as good as the prompt you write and the information that you put in it."
How Justice uses AI in municipal work
When Signal Mountain assumed operation of the Mountain Arts Community Center in January, Justice asked AI to draft resolutions terminating a lease and memorandum of understanding with the nonprofit that had been running it. Much of the final text matched the AI draft, though Justice edited sections and reorganized content before the Town Council voted to pass the resolutions.
Justice also had ChatGPT draft an ordinance allowing the town to charge fees for community center use. The final version differed in one significant way: it gave the town manager authority to amend fees and rates, rather than the Town Council.
When the council first discussed the ordinance in January, Justice did not disclose he had used ChatGPT. He said he does not hide his AI use but doesn't go out of his way to announce it either.
Mayor Elizabeth Baker said she is comfortable with Justice using AI for first drafts or initial ideas. "He's got to start somewhere," she said.
AI in the hiring process
Justice used AI to create job descriptions for a community development director and community center manager. He prompted ChatGPT to act as an expert municipal recruiter, then asked it to generate interview emails, interview plans, and interview questions.
For the community development director role, Justice went further. He fed ChatGPT the job description, the town's strategic action plan, and applicants' resumes, asking the tool to assess how candidates' skills matched the position. ChatGPT created a weighted scoring matrix and ranked the 16 applicants.
The town hired Chelsea Ryden, who ChatGPT ranked seventh out of 16 applicants. Justice said the AI assessment did not influence the hiring team's decisions. "We all came together, figured out our own scoring and all that. And then we went back and said, 'OK, let's see how this compared,'" he said.
Ryden, who took the community development director role, said she has no issue with Justice's use of AI during hiring. "I don't know anybody that uses AI like it's end-all, be-all," she said.
No formal policy yet
Signal Mountain has no written policies governing employee use of AI, according to a town records response. Baker said she would consider bringing an AI policy before the Town Council if a member or employee requested it, but she acknowledged her own lack of familiarity with the technology.
Justice said policies and training on AI will be needed. "There's no replacement for human conversation," he said. "It's one thing to punch it in there, but again, it's really just the template. It's just the bones."
As AI continues to improve, Justice expects municipal officials to use it for routine work. "It's here, and it's being used," he said. "The newness is worn off of it. I think that folks expect you to use it, especially for the basic tasks."
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