CITY OF HOUSTON WEBSITE RECEIVES 4 STAR REVIEW Reviewed by www.muninetguide.com
On December 10, 2001, the City of Houston began accepting payments for parking, traffic, or non-traffic tickets online. This feature is the latest addition to the City’s laudable web site, designed primarily for citizens with some information for businesses and tourists as well.
The financial information on Houston’s web is particularly impressive. Through the Controller’s home page, the site provides comprehensive annual financial reports for fiscal years 1998 as well quarterly investment reports and audit reports. Additionally, Houston is the first city we’ve seen to provide a monthly Financial and Operations Report on its web site. The detailed report includes updates from the Controller’s office as well as the Finance and Administration Department. In addition to statements of financial condition, these pages also include reports on the City budget and information on outstanding debt, risk management funds, and more.
The site provides many notable features (some via links), including Campaign Finance Reports for the 2001 election, maps to city offices, impressive e-library services (searchable catalog, “Ask-a-Librarian,” and online requests to reserve materials and otherwise communicate with the library), monthly police department crime statistics by area, a flash or non-flash photo tour of the City, municipal code, information on Super Neighborhood Councils – to name just a few. Its privacy policy statement is a good one for cities looking for models to follow.
Through the web site, citizens can request access a variety of forms and applications available to print and mail or fax back. Some service requests, like reporting a pothole, can be submitted online. Another nice touch: on its home page, the site provides links to popular non-city services, like the Texas drivers’ license renewal and Harris County Tax Office web sites.
According to Bob Nowak, Houston’s webmaster, one of the site’s primary goals was to improve government technology in order to serve more people online rather than in line. “Saving citizens a trip downtown or occasional long waits on hold by making information online makes government more accessible to more people in a shorter period of time,” he says. He tells us that the home page receives 100,000 hits per month, with 20,000 monthly hits to the site’s search engine.
Nowak says that more enhancements to the site are in the works. These include adding more “citizen-centric” services, banner ads that promote special events or important information, online bill presentment and payment of, for example, water bills, and one-click access to Houston’s technology accomplishments and plans as they benefit citizens and City government. A Spanish version of the web site is also on the way.
