12 questions county staff actually ask.
The questions county staff most often ask before piloting or procuring ClearPath, answered honestly. If your question isn't here, email hello@tann.ai and we'll reply within one business day.
What does ClearPath actually do for my county?
ClearPath gives residents a clear answer to 'where do I take this?' for any item — backed by a real source, specific to their ZIP, and respecting federal, state, county, and city rules in that order. For your county, ClearPath gives you a way to manage the rules you've already published, a dashboard showing what residents are searching for, and a measurement layer for the outcomes you create. Your county website remains the official authority. ClearPath is the routing layer that points residents to the right answer faster.
How long does onboarding take?
For a lightweight pilot, 2-3 weeks. For a full onboarding, 4-6 weeks. For a complex multi-city rollout, 8-12 weeks. Week 1 is a kickoff meeting and data collection. Weeks 2-3 are catalog setup and a per-rule review with your coordinator. Weeks 4-6 are public launch and early outreach. The first round of intelligence dashboards starts showing meaningful data about 2 weeks after launch.
What does my team have to do?
About 2 hours per week of one staff member's time during the first month. We need a single point of contact who can review 5-10 published rules per week and give us permission to cite your already-public guidance with attribution. There is no engineering work from your team. No IT integration. No data export from your systems. Your county website continues to be the canonical source.
Will my IT department block this?
Almost certainly not. The admin portal runs in a browser. Single sign-on is handled by us. There is no software to install on county machines, no agent running on your network, and no data export from your network beyond what your team chooses to publish. If your county prefers to sign in through your own identity provider, that is supported as an enterprise option. Our public Procurement page maps to the standard questionnaires (SIG-Lite, HECVAT) that your IT team will likely use.
How does data ownership work?
Your county owns every piece of data we hold for you — your rules, your facilities, your programs, and every intelligence report we generate. You can export any of it as CSV or PDF at any time, with no special request. We never sell your data, never license it to third parties, never use it for advertising, and never use it to train outside AI models.
What happens if I cancel?
We deliver your full data export within 10 business days of written notice. Your data stays read-only for 60 days so you can verify the export. After 90 days from the cancellation, your data is permanently deleted and you receive written confirmation. Everything we deliver is in open formats — CSV files for rules, facilities, and programs; PDF for intelligence reports. You leave with everything you brought, plus everything the platform generated during your engagement.
What's the procurement question landscape (SIG-Lite, HECVAT)?
Our public Procurement page already answers most of what a SIG-Lite or HECVAT questionnaire will ask — security posture, privacy, audit logging, AI governance, contract terms. If your county uses a custom questionnaire, send it to us and we will return it pre-populated. This typically saves days of back-and-forth in the review cycle.
Can ClearPath support our grant reporting?
Yes. Our impact-measurement framework was built with grant reporting in mind. We ship five report templates (EPA SWIFR, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, National Association of Counties, USDA Rural, and a custom format for your funder). Every metric in every report carries a confidence label so your grants officer never accidentally overstates. We also have pre-drafted SWIFR and MPCA narratives that your team can finish with your county-specific scope and budget.
What does it cost?
Pilot pricing is $30,000-$50,000 per year. Mature contract pricing is $50,000-$100,000 per year for a county the size of Hennepin (roughly 600,000 residents). Per-resident cost is under $0.50 per year. No per-call fees. No charges for adding rules. No multi-year lock-in during pilot or year 1. Pricing depends on your resident base size, the size of your rule catalog, the number of facilities you manage, how many operator seats you need, and which intelligence features you turn on.
Who's using it today?
Hennepin County, Minnesota is our anchor pilot. Ramsey County is our second county. Anoka, Dakota, and Washington counties have ZIP coverage set up and their rule catalogs are in the onboarding queue. The platform supports multiple counties from day one — adding a new county does not require any custom work.
What if our residents already use Recycle Coach?
Recycle Coach and ClearPath complement each other rather than compete. Recycle Coach is calendar-first — it tells residents when pickup is. ClearPath is knowledge-first — it tells residents where the unusual items go (lithium batteries, latex paint, broken microwaves, donated couches). Many counties run both. We're happy to co-exist on your resident-facing surface.
How does ClearPath stay current as our rules change?
Three ways. First, we check every cited source link automatically every day — if a link goes stale, your team is alerted. Second, if a rule has not been re-confirmed in six months, we flag it for review. Third, the catalog learns from real resident questions: when residents ask about something the rule engine cannot answer, that question becomes a candidate for a new rule that your coordinator reviews and publishes. The catalog grows naturally from what your residents actually need, not from someone writing rules in a back office.
More questions?
We maintain a deeper Q&A document covering data ownership, catalog management, resident experience, security, pilot evidence, ROI, and long-term partnership — across roughly 100 questions. Email hello@tann.ai to request a copy, or ask for it at your demo.
See also: Resident FAQ · For cities & counties · Procurement readiness · Grant collateral