Monmouth Polls Rates New Jersey Municipal Websites; Many Missing Critical Contact Information, Statutorily-Required Info
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Here’s a cool read, Save Jerseyans: the Monmouth University Polling Institute and Graduate Program in Public Policy released a collaborative project today wherein they evaluated 540 New Jersey municipal websites.
Just as with everything else, the center of gravity for municipal services is moving online. At least in most towns. What they found:
The study found that nearly all municipal websites in New Jersey provide the names of council members (98%), mayor (97%), and town clerk (94%), as well as the municipal hall address (96%). About two-thirds of town websites provide an email link or message function to directly reach the clerk (66%), mayor (61%), or council members (58%). Just under half provide department emails (48%). However, if a constituent does not know which department should be contacted, only 20% of websites provide a general email address to reach town hall.
It is worth noting that the coding team could not clearly locate the municipal budget on 15% of the websites, which is a state statutory requirement. At the other end of the spectrum, content that is unlikely to be provided on municipal websites are video recordings of city council meetings (6%), crime statistics (3%), and online pet licensing (1%).”
Click here for the full poll results and a town-by-town rating of municipal websites. Pretty wonky but undeniably interesting stuff as modern life — including government access and functions — move into the digital realm.
