A practitioner's field guide

AI for Special Districts, unmasked

FASD 2026
Tue, June 9 · 1:00–2:50 PM
Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress
Orlando, FL

Doug Liles — Special District Commissioner, South Walton County · Founder & CEO, GoodSam.ai · Host, AI for Good. No hype, no vendor pitch — what AI can and can't do for your district, and how to start responsibly.

AI isn't a silver bullet — but with governance first and the right use case, it's a real force multiplier for a lean district. The work is choosing where it helps and putting the guardrails up before you start.

Five places AI earns its keep

1Records & documents. Organize, tag, retrieve, and summarize public records — reclaim administrative hours.
2Meetings & board prep. Draft agenda summaries and memos; synthesize public-comment patterns for a cleaner record.
3Environmental & infrastructure. Sensor analytics, predictive-maintenance flags, and compliance summaries — stormwater, utilities, resilience.
4Constituent services. Triage routine inquiries by chat or voice; extend your responsiveness without adding staff.
5Financial oversight. Flag irregular spending and budget anomalies for human review — an early-warning system.
The #1 mistake
Choosing the technology before building the governance. Governance first, tools second.

Governance before tools — 5 checks

  • Policy. A board-adopted acceptable-use policy, scoped to your statutory purpose.
  • Data & records. Ch. 119 + retention (GS1-SL); keep exempt data out of unapproved tools.
  • Human oversight. A person decides anything affecting rights, benefits, or enforcement.
  • Vendor. Lock data ownership, model-training rights, residency & deletion — before signing.
  • Transparency. Disclose where AI is used; a named human owns every output.

Before you sign — ask

  • Can the vendor train on our data — and who owns it?
  • Where is it stored, and is it deleted when we leave?
  • Who is liable for errors and fabricated output?
  • Can we export everything, public-records ready?
Is it right for AI? Quick rule
GoRoutine, reversible, low-stakes — drafts, summaries, organizing → AI with a quick human check.
Sign-offPublic, sensitive, or rights-affecting → a human reviews and approves. Never "the AI decided."
Get the full interactive toolkit
Readiness self-assessment · governance & ethics checklist · tool finder · human-in-the-loop decision tool — all free, all printable. fasd.fl5ai.com
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