Board Looks to Revamp County Website

Thomas Jean of Revize Web Services gives a presentation and proposal on a revamped Schoharie County website. Photo by Chris English

By Chris English

SCHOHARIE COUNTY — Schoharie County Supervisors and other officials are taking a serious look at a remake of the county website.

At the Friday, Aug. 16 Board of Supervisors meeting, board members and others heard a presentation and proposal from Thomas Jean of Troy, Michigan-based Revize Web Services on creating what would essentially be an entirely new website for the county.

County Administrator Korsah Akumfi said he and others started looking into a website enhancement about two months ago. He said there were 28 responses to a request for proposals, and that list was then narrowed down to companies with experience with municipal websites in New York State.

During his presentation, Jean said Revize has extensive experience in that area and currently handles the websites for Otsego and Oswego counties, the city of Oneonta, and other state governmental entities.

"If you choose to move forward with us, we will allow you to pick the person who would design your website," Jean explained. "We then do a mock-up of what the new site would look like. You can review it and make as many changes as you like. We update the site four times a year with new technology, including security.

"You would own the website and can either host it or have a third-party vendor host it. You can leave us at any time for any reason."

If the county BOS chooses to engage with Revize, Jean said it's typically "four or five months between kickoff and a go live."

Revize would continue the practice of allowing towns and villages in the county to "piggyback" on the county website to have their own sites. There would be no extra charge unless a municipality wanted a "very unique and robust template or design," Jean said.

Answering a question from Deputy County Clerk Judi Beeler, Jean said county employees like Beeler would continue to have ready and quick access to the website to post meeting agendas and other documents.

"Re-training an employee is always free," Jean added. "When you call for live tech support, press one number and you're talking to a human being right away. We try to go the extra mile for you."

Akumfi said the BOS is scheduled to vote on whether to hire Revize at the September meeting. If the decision is to engage the firm, its charge in the first year for the redesign and other work involved in getting the new website up and running would be $44,600. Annual charges for the next four years would then be $6,900, and after that, the Revize annual fee would likely increase about 5 to 10 percent a year, Jean said.

Board members sounded enthusiastic about the idea of a fresh new website.

"Websites have an impact on economic development," said BOS Chair William Federice of Conesville. "One of the things companies and businesses look at is a county website. Ours is aged. We need to work on this and come to a decision so we can get it into the budget for next year."

Supervisor Donald Airey of Blenheim added a revamped website would quite possibly "provide tools to meet ever-emerging regulatory requirements regarding posting materials, etc."

In other actions from the Aug. 16 meeting, resolutions were read aloud honoring and praising the work of two retiring department heads, Director of Probation Denise Minton and Director of the County Office for the Aging Nancy Dingee.

Also approved were resolutions confirming their replacements, Richard Cain in Probation at a starting annual salary of $98,602 and Meg Parsons in the Office for the Aging at a starting annual salary of $73,210.