Barnegat Rates Higher Than Stafford in Monmouth University Poll On Websites

As municipalities continue to find ways to upgrade their websites to meet the requirements for the Governor's Best Standards Checklist, towns now know where they stand in the state among other municipal websites.

According to a Monmouth University poll ranking 540 municipal websites in the state, Middletown, out of Monmouth County, ranks first and Tavistock Borough, Camden County, ranks 540^th.

Franklin Lakes Borough, out of Bergen County, was second and West Windsor Township, from Mercer County, was third.

Barnegat Township ranked 148th, but they are currently upgrading their town's website and that work is expected to be completed in the next few weeks, according to information presented at the last committee meeting. Stafford Township ranked 343.

Monmouth University used three factors to determine a website’s overall grade: Ease of Use, Content Score and Citizen Interaction.

Each website was assigned a team of coders, partially charged with determining Ease of Use through four key factors: contact information for the mayor or the mayor’s equivalent (such as the township manager); building permit form or information; the budget; and trash/recycling information, if applicable. If that service was not provided by the township, coders were instructed to find information pertaining to how to set up trash/recycling pickup.

The amount of time it took from the time the website was initially loaded until the time the information was found was measured, with a cap of two minutes. The score was determined by averaging the amount of time each coder took to find each piece of relevant information.

The Content Score included factors such as names and contact information for elected officials and key personnel, meeting schedules and minutes, garbage pickup, permit and zoning information, and police, fire and EMS contacts.

Citizen Interaction measured the ability of citizens to post information about citizens’ advisory committees or professional appointments, and the ability to contact key officials and sign up for advisory alerts.

Municipalities were also judged on the availability of online government services and social networking, including Facebook and Twitter, and the ability for citizens to share photos and write blog posts.

The study was conducted as a whole between March and September of 2012, and all scores reflect the websites’ performances for 2012.

Of all the websites analyzed in the study, 44 percent were designed by vendors who provide design services to multiple municipalities, while 33 percent were designed by a volunteer or a vendor who provided the service to just one town. Only 23 percent were designed “in-house.”

Vendors who designed multiple municipal websites generally perform the best out of the three categories, with a Content Score of 37.6 and an Ease of Use Score of 41.4. Those designed “in-house” were second, with scores of 33.9 and 37.5, respectively, and single-client vendors scored 30.9 and 38.5, respectively.

Middletown’s Ease of Use Score was 53.9, while the Content Score was 59.5 and Citizen Interaction was 21.0.

However, Toms River’s website was initially outsourced before the town realized that practice was “impractical.”

Toms River then developed an in-house IT team to upgrade the website, which took “several months,” according to Toms River Clerk J. Mark Mutter.

“We have an in-house IT department that updates our site on an almost daily basis,” Mutter said.

Toms River was the highest ranked website among Ocean County municipalities, at 83, with scores of 50.1, 41.5 and 14.3, respectively.

The only Atlantic County municipality ranked in the top 100 was Egg Harbor Township, at 34. Buena (172), Hamilton Township (177), Northfield (242), Mullica (284) and Absecon (304) were all ranked ahead of Galloway.

Four Atlantic County towns were ranked in the lower 100, including Margate (453), Hammonton (460), Atlantic City (474) and Folsom (500), while Weymouth was ranked just outside the bottom 100 at 439.

Cherry Hill was the highest ranked Camden County website, at 15. Roselle Borough was the highest ranked Union County site, at 43, and Ocean City was ranked No. 145.

Municipalities have been required to upgrade their websites to meet the standards set forth by the Governor’s Best Practices Checklist.

The complete rankings, including full analysis and top 10 municipalities in multiple categories, are attached to this story as a PDF.