Since 2010 seven municipalities nation wide have filed for bankruptcy. California has the largest number of municipalities filing for bankruptcy with three. According to several recent reports, many local governments in New York are in serious financial trouble. – Rochester used a one-time, $15 million in state aid to reduce its $40 million deficit thisRead… Read more »
Normally when we bid a construction project, we don’t address in the bid documents the payment of sales tax. We do, however, indicate that the contractor is required to follow all Federal, State, and Local laws. Because of this, I would assume that on most projects, a contractor would be paying any required sales taxRead… Read more »
After attending both PyCon and OSCON, and manning the Code for America expo booth at both events, it’s become pretty clear that technical people are kind of shocked that Macon is a Code for America city. “Macon… Georgia?” is a question I’ve heard multiple times (with varying amounts of pause between city and state). InRead… Read more »
If you’re serious about engagement, you stopped expecting people to just come to your meetings a long time ago. And if you’re really serious about engagement, you know that even social media and block parties can’t help you reach all the people in your community. The next frontiers in innovative public engagement include a wholeRead… Read more »
Tune-in to Design Beyond the Past: people, paper and city government. In this podcast 2012 CfA Fellow Alicia Rouault comments on the challenges facing city governments in introducing some “Bay Area” innovation. “While cities have the will to innovate, legacy systems are holding them back.” – Alicia Rouault Design Beyond the Past by Code forRead… Read more »
A small group of designers and entrepreneurs in Chattanooga, TN have been engaged in a grass-roots effort to make their city first city in the US to have its own font. It started last year when collaboration began on a font to encapsulate the unique aspects of the city. In January, the group unveiled Chatype,Read… Read more »
The federal government’s use of social media—including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and other sites—draws no end of press coverage, and for good reason: in the past three years, federal agencies have been engaging citizens through Facebook (NASA has more fans than the population of Denver, CO) and Twitter (The State Department has more followers thanRead… Read more »
Did you ever have something that you wanted done in your community — but your elected leaders wouldn’t pay attention or kept saying that they don’t have the money. What if you could have like minded people come together to help fund those projects. The idea — the crowdfunding of civic projects — has someRead… Read more »
In my continuing quest to ensure that local governments are recognized for the services they provide to the public, I bring you the first of several profiles of local government CIOs. With limited budgets, constraints from the county and state and under the unending watch of citizens, local technology departments are tasked with providing consistentlyRead… Read more »
The Center for Digital Government and the Digital Communities program has announced the winning counties in this year’s survey competition to identify leaders in the digital field. Four winners were named in various population categories. These four leading communities implemented new initiaties this year that created positive results and cost savings for, despite scarce funding.Read… Read more »