The Center for Digital Government and the Digital Communities program has announced the winning counties in this year’s survey competition to identify leaders in the digital field. Four winners were named in various population categories. These four leading communities implemented new initiaties this year that created positive results and cost savings for, despite scarce funding. Today’s highlighted county in Sussex County in New Jersey, winner of the 150,000 to 249,000 population category.
1.) One of the main issues that Sussex County was facing in its IT field was the high cost of maintaining separate servers for individual municipalities across the county. Their (winning) solution involved a brining together of public cloud, private cloud, and office computer networks onto one virtualized platform. Now all 24 of the towns have their own private space within the county’s shared cloud, giving them the best mix of shared but separate services, reducing maintenance and service costs significantly.
2.) The county also cited their switch to blade servers (as opposed to the traditional rack-mounted servers) as a way they have lessened their carbon footprint and saved money on energy use by up to one-fourth of their prior usage.
3.) The county website also gained top marks for its level of transparency and ability to connect citizens with services. It’s a one-stop-shop for people seeking info on: Budget, Meetings, Elected Officials, Administrative Officials, Permits, zoning, Audits, Contracts, Lobbying Public Records, Local Taxes.
Thank you to GovTech for coverage of these awards with the article, 2012 Digital Counties Survey Winners Announced
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