It's been nearly 10 years since the current website for Jefferson City went live, and now staff members are hoping to wrap up work on a new site in the next few months.
Lisa Scheulen, IT manager for Jefferson City, said staff have been working for about one year with Revize, a company out of Troy, Michigan, that specializes in government websites. Scheulen said the new site will be a large improvement to the current one, which was built in-house with limited resources in 2006.
The city paid $17,200 for the initial sales agreement with Revize, as well as another $2,200 for the "micro-site" used by the Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department. The city pays Revize an annual hosting fee of $3,600 for the new site.
Scheulen said the new site will be focused on transparency, as well as educating the public about what the city does. Staff is focusing on what documents people need for different licenses and permits, and trying to find the best way to organize topics on the site, she said, in an effort to make things as user-friendly as possible.
"It will also have a new look and feel," Scheulen said. "Our focus is making the experience of doing business with the city easier."
Some of the expected features of the new site include a "how do I ..." section, email notifications for page updates, placing all agendas and meeting notices in one spot, and a new organization that seeks to list city functions in terms of services rather than by department. Scheulen said it also will be responsive to the device being used, meaning it will adapt to cell phone screen, tablet or computer.
Another issue staff is trying to focus on is consistency, she said. The city has no web manager, and 30 different people act as content managers for the site, Scheulen said, which can create conflict.
"To maintain that consistency takes a lot of communication," Scheulen said. "Creating the website is the easy part; it's maintaining it that's hard."
Staff had originally planned to have the website ready by now, but are still building content. Scheulen said it is difficult to pin down an exact date for when the site will be ready, but a tentative timeline has the site going live around August.
As staff continue to build content, Scheulen said the city is still hoping for more public input. Staff had reached out asking people to take a survey about what they'd like in a new site, though Scheulen noted only a few people took part. Now, she said, she is speaking to the employees who handle the majority of calls to City Hall to ask what people ask about most frequently.
"We tried to reach out to the public to get input on what they wanted," Scheulen said.
Scheulen said she wants people to bring their suggestions for the site to staff because it is meant to serve all Jefferson City residents.
"We just want it to be a portal for them," Scheulen said.