ITHACA — Tompkins County has for a fourth time been recognized as one of the nation’s top digital counties by the Center for Digital Government and the National Association of Counties (NACo), the county announced. The award identifies best technology practices among U.S. counties nationwide, recognizing leading examples of counties that use technology to improve […]
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ITHACA — Tompkins County has for a fourth time been recognized as one of the nation’s top digital counties by the Center for Digital Government and the National Association of Counties (NACo), the county announced.
The award identifies best technology practices among U.S. counties nationwide, recognizing leading examples of counties that use technology to improve services and boost efficiencies, according to a news release issued by Tompkins County.
The top-10 ranking for 2017, among counties with populations of up to 150,000, marks the fourth straight year that Tompkins County has achieved the “Top Digital County” status.
Tompkins was recognized for its range of digital shared-services initiatives that share resources among local governments, with the county acting as the hub. Unlike larger governments, small jurisdictions often do not have the resources to implement and support big technology initiatives, and often the best solution is to pool resources with neighboring counties, the county said.
One major shared project is the Tompkins Shared Services Electronic Records Repository (TSSERR — tompkinscountyny.gov/tsserr), a public shared-records management portal from Laserfiche for which Tompkins County is the data custodian. Projected cost savings from the project through 2018 are expected to total $2.9 million. Tompkins County’s next big initiative will be to use a $604,000 New York State Government Efficiency Grant to expand the enterprise content-management system to neighboring Cortland County, and in turn will store its backup records in Cortland’s data center, the release stated.
“All governments should be looking to shared services and collaboration to eliminate redundancy, create cost-savings for taxpayers, establish relationships with municipal partners, and make government transparent,” Tompkins County Clerk Maureen Reynolds said. “Technology-based service delivery is also what the public is expecting today.”
For 2017, Tompkins County tied for 10th place in the up-to-150,000-population category. Albemarle County, Virginia took first place in this category.
For more information on this year’s Digital Counties program, visit: www.govtech.com/dc/articles/Digital-Counties-Survey-2017-Results.html.