Southold Town’s website got a failing grade on a report card issued yesterday by the nonprofit Empire Center for Pubic Policy in Albany.
The Empire Center, publisher of the See Through New York website, reviewed and scored the websites of the 500 largest counties, municipalities and school districts in New York, using a 10-item rubric to test them for the type and amount of information published, as well as ease of navigation.
Southold got an “F”, but the town wasn’t alone: Eighty-five percent of the websites reviewed in the study failed to earn a passing grade.
Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell spoke out about the report card on Friday: “The analysis by this organization is done out of context and in a vacuum. Southold’s website needs to be evaluated on what it once was and what it has become. We updated the site a few years ago and it is vastly improved from what it the site was originally. We constantly strive to make it better and are undertaking a ‘facelift” next year. All of the information that the organization suggests should be on a website is already on our site. Employee contracts, bid documents, etc., are all posted and available.”
Meanwhile, Russell added that the “’ease of navigation’ is one area we know we need to improve and are working on that, as part of our factlift. Website management is time consuming and the town only has two employees in the IT department who tend to all of the technology needs of every department in town government, including a very tech-dependent police department. The organization states in its own report that there is ‘no real guidance for what makes a good website’ then proceeds to offer its own arbitrary analysis.”
Southold’s website, Russell said, “contains information that this organization clearly does not value. Payment of taxes online, interactive GIS based-maps, etc., are just some of the features our site offers. The organization should strive to evaluate each site not just for what it doesn’t have but for what it does have — so that a more complete picture can be drawn. See Through New York is looking at websites through its own narrow lens.”
In addition, Russell said, “It it needs to be stated that this organization reviewed 500 websites and 85 percent received a failing grade. That may indicate that expectations were a bit high on how a website should be organized. Still, we could always do better and will.” He added, “Civic Plus was the original designer and hosts our content. We continue to review it and make improvements regularly. Certainly, like anything, there is always room for improvement. ”
Riverhead Town’s website is one of only six government sites in the State of New York to earn better than a C on the report card.
Southold got a 93, and Riverhead scored a 118, out of 146 possible points. Riverhead earned a B — along with just five other government websites statewide. No government website earned an A. The highest score in the state was 122, earned by the Town of Penfield.
“Except for a small — but notable — group of outliers, local governments and school districts are not providing clear or comprehensive or even the most basic information on their websites,” the report concluded. “What could and should be useful, powerful tools for taxpayers are very much underutilized.”
The city, town, village and county websites were tested for ease of navigation and for posting the following types of information:
adequacy of contact information for elected officials, department heads and senior staff;
notice and minutes of public meetings;
information about accessing public information;
current and past budget documents;
current and past audited financial reports;
employee collective bargaining agreements, employment and vendor contracts and RFPs;
information regarding taxes and fees;
payroll and expenditure data; and
information on services provided by the municipality.
Southold and Brookhaven each got an F, while Southampton scored a C and East Hampton, a D. Suffolk County’s website scored 111 points, earning a C on the report card.
The Town of Huntington, with 117 points, was the only other municipality on Long Island to also earn a B; the average score for Long Island municipalities was 48 percent.
“Most of the 500 local government and school district websites we reviewed between July and September of 2014 need major improvements before they will be providing citizens with all the public information to which they are entitled,” the report said. “Fortunately, as highlighted in this report, there are some good examples to follow.”
See the full “Local Government Website Report Card”
