Grand Jury Grand Jury Response from City of Watsonville 3 messages

County and City website information is sometimes missing, out-of-date, and inaccurate; links may be broken. Thus, many city and county departments aren't updating their websites often enough to keep citizens informed. AGREE X PARTIALLY DISAGREE – explain the disputed portion DISAGREE – explain why Response explanation (required for a response other than Agree): The City of Watsonville entered into a contract with CivicPlus Website on April, 25, 2016 with the goal to redesign and rebuild the City’s Website. Every page of the Website was then reviewed for accuracy and relevant content. New graphic designs were developed, content was reviewed and redacted, new modules were built and clean data was imported from the previous Website. The contract stipulates that upon completion of site development the City staff will assume responsibility for website content maintenance and administration. In order to do so, the City established a decentralized management system of the website in which each City department is responsible for maintaining relevant content and information on the website. At the onset of the project, two to three department employees received extensive website management training from CivicPlus. The design and content migration process of the new website (current) took 11 months. The new website was launched live on May 3, 2017, and per CivicPlus contract all links and content were in good working order. The content of each department’s subpage is managed by these employees as part of their other regular duties. Over time, several of the trained employees have either left the City or have been reassigned to new jobs and much of the knowledge based developed during the transition has been lost due to job attrition. The City’s contract with Civic Plus includes a website refresh every two years. During the refresh all links are reviewed, content is updated and old information is removed. The City is now due for a content refresh per the CivicPlus contract; however, given the COVID-19 pandemic, this process was delayed until early next year. Content management at the Department level, using Department employees is a cost effective and efficient manner of maintaining the City’s website. The City will continue to use this decentralized website management model and keep the refresh contract with CivicPlus. Each of employees assigned to maintain and update the website do their best to display the most current information on each Departmental website. The website contains a report that shows broken links. This report is run every month and that information is given to those employees assigned to the maintenance of the website and updates are made when necessary or when they are flagged. Broken links or out-of-date data are hard to notice and can only be fixed if they are brought to their attention.

County and City administrations lack a process to review content accuracy and currency and thereby assure timely correction and revision of content. AGREE X PARTIALLY DISAGREE – explain the disputed portion DISAGREE – explain why Response explanation (required for a response other than Agree): The City does have a process to review content and assures that the majority of content displayed is accurate. We try to ensure there is no unapproved content on the website by limiting the number of employees who have access to make such updates. Anytime inaccurate information is found or reported, it is updated as soon as possible. As explained on F1, the City has a process to periodically perform a major update and refresh of the content in which major issues not identified during monthly checks are addressed.

County and City goals for website redesign or quality improvement are not sufficiently “SMART”: Specific + Measurable + Attainable + Relevant + Time- Bound. AGREE X PARTIALLY DISAGREE – explain the disputed portion DISAGREE – explain why Response explanation (required for a response other than Agree): We believe that the City does have SMART goals in place for website redesign and quality improvement. Our current contract with CivicPlus, the company that designed our website, has a website redesign option set in place to take effect this year. We have already begun gathering ideas as to what we will be requesting with this redesign. The two years since the current website was built and went live, has given enough time and information to see what is working and what is not working. By running a traffic report, we will be able to determine which pages need to be retired based on the number of visits; this will make our website simpler and more relevant. The main thing that will come with this redesign will be a simpler website, easier to maintain with the limited staffing we have available. In order to ensure the website was relevant and offered the best customer service tool for our residents, at the time of building the City’s current website, each department tracked phone calls and requests from the public for two weeks to identify frequently asked questions and information requested. The goal was to identify what information was regularly being requested so we can make that information readily available on our website. The City’s website committee, composed by employees of all City Departments, also identified goals for the website which were: • Information should be easy to find, with as few clicks as possible • Ability to manage content individually and keep current • Ease of use for both staff and the community • Interactive features • Engage the community • Build equity in the community • Reduce workload of staff • Improve perception of Watsonville • Translatable into Spanish • Must be mobile device friendly • Easy to use and find information • No clutter! • Visually pleasing to the eye • Provide the residents, business owners, and visitors with tools to expedite requests, answer questions and disseminate information

County and City website content providers do not provide an explanation in content for incorrect or out-of-date information, even though they appear to know the reasons. AGREE PARTIALLY DISAGREE – explain the disputed portion X DISAGREE – explain why Response explanation (required for a response other than Agree): When the City becomes aware of incorrect or out of date information on the website, it is corrected. We don’t believe there is any piece of inaccurate information being displayed to the public which we are aware of and have not taken the steps to correct it. New tools continue to be developed and with the refresh of our website we will have the ability to implement and retrain staff with the latest maintenance tools available.