The city of Auburn has one of the top five websites among cities in New York state, according to a report released by The Empire Center for Public Policy. The results were not as positive for Cayuga County and the Auburn City School District, however, as both government entities received failing grades from the organization. 

The report, released on Wednesday, was compiled by the center, a non-profit think tank, by reviewing each website individually throughout July and August.

The websites were ranked on how effectively, if at all, they provided information on budgets, public contracts and meetings, government expenditures and ways to reach public employees .Ease of use was also taken into account.

For the city of Auburn, this ranking marks an effort that City Clerk Chuck Mason said starts with the Mayor Michael Quill and City Manager Doug Selby: to be as transparent as possible. 

The website was revamped this spring, and while the “C” ranking it received doesn’t look great at first glance, its numerical score is actually tied for fifth highest in the state. New York City received the highest score with the only “B.” 

“We know that not everyone uses the Internet in Auburn, but it’s definitely something we emphasize,” Selby said. “We want it be a source of records and information and we’d like it to grow even more robust in that regard.”

Mason noted that one of the areas the city didn’t score well in, the posting of public contracts online, has been something he has been working on including in the site. 

He said keeping the website updated is a constant effort that requires the work of several different branches of city government.

“I can certainly understand and empathize with some of the municipalities that did not score as well,” Mason said. “It’s something that takes a lot of effort and resources to build.” 

Cayuga County and the Auburn City School District are certainly not alone in failing the test. Of the 500 websites tested, 427 received failing grades.

In the report, author Tim Hoefer noted that the rankings are not meant to “place blame on any individual local government,” but instead show how websites can improve.

Cayuga County Administrator Suzanne Sinclair said that, while she is disappointed to hear the ranking, she said the county will take it into consideration and has already been looking for ways of providing additional records on the site.

She noted that the website already archives minutes of legislative meetings back ten years and provides an accessible budget.

Before November’s Ways and Mean Committee meeting, the software company OpenGov will present its financial data-basing software to the Cayuga County Legislature.  

Financial reporting was actually one of the categories the county scored a zero on, along with public information. 

Points in the public information category are rewarded for things such as having the contact information for a public information officer or information on how to submit a Freedom of Information request. Financial report scores, meanwhile, are awarded for providing audited financial reports in a searchable database. 

The Auburn City School District also received zeros in the public information and financial reports category, as well as in the contracts category. 92 percent of school district websites tested received a failing grade, the highest of any government category except for villages.  

Timothy Moon, the chief information officer for the school district, said there has been a lot of discussion about the report among information officers at school districts in the state. He said the criteria used to rate the websites, which mostly focused on issues of transparency, doesn’t take enough into account the average user of a school website.

“Who do we build a website for?” Moon said. “Is it for people from EmpireCenter.org, or people who want to know when the school board meeting is, or what time the football game happens Saturday?”

Moon added that the district launched an updated version of its website in September, after the center would have rated it. He said the current version of the website serves the needs of its intended audience, students and parents.

“We’ve had lots of people email in and tell us they appreciate the new site and have been able to find what they need,” Moon said. “And those are more the people I see as day-to-day users.”

© 2014 Auburn Citizen