We at The Enterprise are well aware of how hard it is to build an informative and easily navigable website. We’re on our third attempt and were gratified last spring when judges in a statewide contest awarded us for our “very clean design,” saying, “It is easy on the eyes and allows for focus. Good functionality.”

One of the great things about the digital revolution is it has empowered citizens, making much important information instantly available. We, as journalists, rely on the same websites citizens do. In this era, municipalities shouldn’t consider dispensing information electronically as an add-on; rather it is essential.

We were greatly encouraged this year when several of the towns we cover followed our advice in this space and started posting their meeting agendas to their websites, a useful service for all citizens. There is more room for improvement.

This week, we’re running an in-depth story on the Empire Center for Public Policy’s first evaluation of websites for the state’s 500 largest counties, municipalities, and school districts.

We commend the effort of the Albany think tank as no one else has taken on this difficult and worthwhile task. And, we agree with the basic precept of its lead author, Tim Hoefer, the center’s director: “Local government officials regularly make decisions that will have ramifications long after they’ve left office...Taxpayers have a right to know the full details of these decisions and their ramifications both before and after they’ve been voted on.”

The Empire Center adapted a useful 10-point checklist from the Illinois Policy Institute and set about awarding points for each category. We’re not big fans of the recently popular penchant for assigning letter grades in such evaluations, especially when, as here, the vast majority come out as failures.

Shame and scorn are not great motivators for improvement. As the Guilderland supervisor, Kenneth Runion put it, “Usually, if less than 50 percent get a passing grade, something is wrong with the criteria.”

In this case, we believe the criteria were mostly sound — all except the number of points assigned across categories for ease of navigation, which is often largely subjective, and is less relevant since search engines ferret out even inconspicuous information.

We urge all of the school districts and municipalities we cover, not just the ones evaluated by the Empire Center, to consult the center’s checklist and see how their websites might be improved.

At rock bottom is the need to meet the requirements of the law. The Empire Center discovered that dozens of the municipal websites it evaluated failed to conspicuously post meeting notices, thereby violating state law.

We covered a story earlier this year where a vote for a firehouse expansion was illegal because the fire department had posted notices as required, but the project has proceeded anyway. There is no excuse for such flagrant violation of the law. It undermines the trust on which democracy is built.

The Empire Center has done a public service in not only pointing out the problems in many websites but in also offering models of sites that are successful in conveying useful information. Anyone can check out these sites, listed in our story and also online at empirecenter.org to learn how to improve their own sites.

An example of how to improve a website is exemplified in the attitude shown by Amy McGeady, the public information officer for the Guilderland schools. She heard from her colleagues about emails they were receiving from the Empire Center on the website report cards and went to the trouble to track down the one that had been sent to Guilderland but was languishing in the superintendent’s spam folder.

Rather than just ignore it because she hadn’t received it, McGeady sought it out, read it, called the author of the report, showed him some things he had missed, and also learned from his critique.

Being open minded and ready to change is what it takes to improve. Then, of course, the work must be done to bring about those improvements. McGeady says the district’s website is under constant internal review; that is the best way to keep current in this rapidly changing digital world.

The more a town, village, county, school district does to inform its public, the better it is for all concerned. Taxpayers, for example, are paying the salaries of public employees and should be able to easily access their contracts. Only 1 percent of school districts or municipalities post contracts, the Empire Center discovered.

The center cites its 2008 report, “Lifting the Shroud of Secrecy,” that documented instances in which the public was kept in the dark about costly labor agreements until it was too late for taxpayers to contact their elected officials.

Citizens have a job to do, too. They should inform those in charge of their town, county, village, or school websites — we’ve named them in our article — about what information they need.

McGeady described a “light-bulb moment” when someone requests something on the school district’s website and she concludes, “If you’re looking for it, someone else is, too.”

And, as Mary Rozak at the Albany County Executive’s Office put it, “We all think differently.” She points out that the new website the county launched last year tries to accommodate different pathways to find information.

And, she says of maintaining a website, “It’s a two-way street. We always welcome feedback.”

So, citizens, you must do your part, too, and inform your leaders of your needs. Then, of course, the leaders must listen and follow through.
— Melissa Hale-Spencer