Promoting Government Transparency is a Leading Topic of Interest for Local Elected Officials

PTI Staff Contact: Dale Bowen, 202-626-2456.

Using technology tools that promote transparency in municipal government is the leading technology topic of interest to local officials, according to a brief survey of National League of Cities (NLC) and Public Technology Institute (PTI) members.

Members of NLC’s Community Development and Infrastructure network and PTI’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council were polled in the survey and asked to rank their level of interest in having NLC and PTI provide information and resources to their local elected officials.

Thirty-one members of the two groups participated in this electronic survey. The five topics of most interest to both sets of members and the topics they would like their elected officials to receive more information about are:

• Technologies that promote transparency;
• Technology tools and practices that improve government performance (internal) and service delivery (external);
• Web 2.0/Gov 2.0 and social media to engage the public;
• Technology and telecommunications practices to enhance economic development efforts; and
• New and emerging technology trends and issues.

As members of both organizations see the benefit of providing more Web-based services and programs online, they are realizing the need for a stronger technological infrastructure to make this a reality.

“Broadband access changes the way we communicate, work, educate and deliver key services to our citizens,” said NLC Information Technology and Communications Committee Vice Chair Andy Huckaba, councilmember, Lenexa, KS. “In challenging economic times, the proliferation of broadband in our communities becomes even more important to deliver needed municipal services and communications at a lower cost. Broadband allows our cities to work smarter.”

NLC and PTI will use the results of this survey to identify relevant topics for the upcoming Practical Technology Briefings — a series of resource guides and webinars on technology topics geared specifically for local elected officials. The first resource guide offered as part of this Practical Technology Briefings Program will be available in the spring of 2010.

02-01-2010     Send a link     Press Room   Chief Information Officers (CIOs)   Web Management & E-Government     Print version