Until now, the City's policy has been to have each department develop its own web page independently of other departments, as part of the City's overall web site at www.ci.sat.tx.us . With apologies to Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, we refer to this as the policy of "Let 100 Flowers Bloom."
One result of this policy has been that a number of departments have developed web pages which are extensive, informative, useful, well designed, and creatively implemented. In their individual functional areas, these are fully equal to the best we have found anywhere among other cities' web pages.
Unfortunately, however, another result is that the city's total web presence could fairly be called a shambles. Every department's page is completely different in its conception from every other. With no commonality of format or navigational structure, the total package is user-unfriendly in the extreme. Even potentially useful links (e.g., from Neighborhood Planning to the Police Department's neighborhood crime data, or from Economic Development to current bid procurements by the Purchasing and General Services Department) are problematic in this environment. They bounce a web browser from one department's page to another without warning, and with no idea where he or she has landed in relation to where they started, or how to navigate effectively between the two departments. Thus the real value of the whole effort falls far short of its true potential, in comparison with the resources invested in it.
In addition, it is clear that many departments are unable to keep updated the materials they have once started to post to their pages. (It would be unfair to cite specific examples while leaving out so many others.) It would be better if these departments had never made so many promises which they cannot fulfill.
In short, the City desperately needs some central management of its web page presence. This management should focus on setting general standards for departmental web pages, and on ensuring a common look-and-feel for all departments' pages as part of a single unified web site. It should not second-guess other departments in determining the kinds of information which citizens may find useful, or departments' priorities in developing new materials and applications for their pages. The standards we envision would address such issues as the following:
Minimum content requirements and format standards for common generic types of materials (e.g., the agendas of boards and advisory committees supported by various departments, or the calendars of programs and events which several departments publish)
Standards for updating of information
Issues of multiple platforms and backwards compatibility
Policies addressing reciprocal navigation of links between one departmental page and another.Implementation of this management would probably involve the development of some kind of "style manual" and implementation of a training program for every department's designated webmaster, in addition to monitoring and technical assistance to individual departments.
This task force is obviously not in a position to develop a Program Change Budget detailing the staffing requirements and other resources necessary to implement this recommendation. That task must be undertaken by the Office of Budget and Management Analysis in cooperation with other departments.
However, we do believe that the essential perspective which should govern this management is that of the Community Relations Department. Therefore we recommend that the primary responsibility for this management function should be assigned to that department. Additional funds may also be necessary for a complementary role of technical support by the Information Services Department.
While some "hard core" General Fund budget appropriation is necessary for this purpose, some part of the cost of this management might also be recovered through overhead charges to departments funded by special revenue and enterprise funds.
At present, individual City departments provide e-mail links to their staff through their web pages in a pattern which can only be called haphazard. As with the issues of web page design, formatting and navigation, the result from a citizen's perspective is a study in frustration. This greatly reduces the usefulness of this communications medium, instead of capitalizing on its real potential.
One aspect of this issue is the way the City budgets for e-mail to/from the outside world, through a modest monthly charge-back to the department by ISD. Arguably, this presents each department Director with the choice of funding one more e-mail account vs. filling a few more potholes, buying a few more library books, publishing one more program information pamphlet, etc.
Perhaps a more fundamental issue involves the other resources associated with this form of communication: the allocation of adequate staff time to handle the potential volume of e-communications, and the development and administration of appropriate protocols to log messages, route them to an appropriate respondent, track and record responses, etc. This is all a burden which is easier to avoid than to confront, in a context of scarce resources.
The task force believes that the present administrative arrangements and bureaucratic incentives systematically deter city departments from making the most effective use of e-mail for communication with citizens. We believe the solution to this problem must involve a conscious commitment as a city government - not as a collection of unrelated city departments - to use this communications technology to the best advantage of everyone.
To implement this commitment, the existing system of catch-as-catch-can must be replaced by a deliberate policy, backed by a deliberate commitment of resources. As a first step, we suggest that the Community Relations Department should initiate an analysis of who in the city government really should by accessible by e-mail, either to receive and respond to citizen requests for information, or to receive/respond to requests for service, or to handle complaints, or for a variety of other possible purposes. This analysis should include dialogue with community organizations, neighborhood associations, professional and interest group organizations, etc. Based on this analysis, the City's existing total commitment of resources for e-mail communications can then be compared intelligently to the universe of needs in an ideal world, and some priorities could then be established to meet fiscal reality. Perhaps in the future, Community Relations could then administer a central pool of funds for the purpose, which could be tapped by individual departments showing their need in relation to the established priorities. Clearly this pool must be at least as large as the current accidental total of the charges now buried in various departmental accounts in the General Fund. Some mechanism should also be developed for Community Relations to encourage the use of e-mail by non-General Fund departments.
Again, the policy of "Let 100 Flowers Bloom" has produced enormous variation from one department to another in the breadth, depth and quality of information available. Departments' offerings seem to depend on unknowable vagaries of what information is available in some other form, the personal interests of staff with a part-time assignment to update the department's web page, etc. Never has the city taken a city-wide look at how making available additional materials controlled by the City Clerk's office stacks up against additional materials from the Planning Department, the Metropolitan Health District and the Economic Development Department (to choose a random series of examples), as a real priority to the city as a whole.
The wealth of material which could be made available in this form obviously far exceeds the city's available resources to do so. Therefore we recommend that Community Relations be charged to begin the development of some priorities to govern the allocation of resources for such purposes. Again, this effort must be informed by a deliberate program of dialogue with citizens and other organizations in the community. Based on this analysis, Community Relations might then administer a central pool of funds for new materials development, evaluating and ranking proposals by other departments citywide in a kind of internal competitive grant program.
The volume and the variety of potential grant funds in this area has grown almost as explosively as the Internet itself. Potential sources range from National Information Infrastructure programs to the state's Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund, to the Texas Water Development Board (for mapping related to natural resources) and private foundations. While some individual departments (notably the Library) have been aggressive in pursuing such opportunities, the City as a whole simply does not "have its act together" in this respect.
To be successful in this competitive grant environment, a premium must be placed on proposals which will benefit the San Antonio community in a wider sense, rather than just the municipal government as an institutional entity. Partnerships and networking are the order of the day among potential funding agencies. Therefore proposals which involve cooperation with school districts, colleges and universities, health care agencies and other entities targeted by the federal and state governments should be emphasized. Special attention should also be paid to addressing the issues of the "democratization of information," and preventing a possible split in the community between information "haves" and "have-nots."
A regular, conscious, city-wide grantsmanship program could take many forms. Whether it should be based in the Budget office, Intergovernmental Relations, ISD, or some other department is a matter which this task force does not feel confident in addressing.
The shortage of trained staff in functional line departments is perhaps the most fundamental obstacle to the City's making full use of the technology which is available now. While ISD has impressive training facilities and offers a wide range of training programs, more resources should be allocated to free-up the time of targeted staff to take advantage of the training which is available to them.