County plans to launch new website in September
By Brandi Makuski
After years of complaints and frustration, Portage Co. has begun the process of rebuilding its website.
Portage County Executive John Pavelski said the rebuild is one of several goals he has in mind for improving customer service for county taxpayers. The new website will launch on Sept. 14.
“It’s important that the website has a modern feel, but we also don’t want to be so creative that it ends up being a difficult user experience,” Pavelski said in a press release this week. “People utilizing our website want to get in, get their information, and get on with their day as efficiently and painlessly as possible. The less guessing involved, the less stressful and frustrating the experience.”
With some guidance from IT Director Shane Gollnick, and after comparing costs and features, the county will contract with CivicPlus to build the new site. For about $34,000, CivicPlus will also provide consulting, data transfer, staff training, and the first year of hosting and security. Additional software and programming will be necessary and will cost extra, the county said.
“We had gotten to the point where our current web hosting service was unable to fix or improve problematic features, so the only option was to start over,” Gollnick said. “We investigated building and maintaining the website ourselves, but quickly found that it would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to do so.”
One of the new programs coming with the new website is Municode, which will make searching through the county’s ordinances simpler.
“The process for viewing our current codes of ordinances is clumsy and not easy to navigate,” said County Clerk Maria Davis, who added the program provides better search engine functionality, archives changes made within the code of ordinances, and allows the public to sign up for email notifications when publications are updated online. “Overall, it’s just better transparency.”
Pavelski said that county staff has been working hard behind the scenes to prepare the new site in advance of the launch, spending “hundreds of hours combing through old files and pages to ensure that only up-to-date, pertinent, and required data is transferred.”
“Prior to implementing these [new] programs, an open records request might take hours of staff time to compile, which may result in a significant price tag for the person requesting. We are hopeful this will reduce many of those man hours and fees and improve turnaround time,” he added.
County leaders have also discussed possibly updating the county’s logo, and the new website will feature brighter shades of green in honor of Portage County’s rich natural resources, strong history of conservation, agricultural sector, business growth, and outdoor recreational features — and put a spotlight on local photography of the area.
“We know that there are many talented photographers of all ages in our community, and we are looking forward to launching a yearly photo contest to keep the website well-stocked with images that showcase our county,” he said.
In the meantime, the website will start out featuring photos supplied by the Stevens Point Convention and Visitors Bureau of scenes from around the county.
The current county website is www.co.portage.wi.us. Once the new website is complete on Sept. 14, county residents can find it at www.co.portage.wi.gov.
It’s the latest push towards updating county services. In April, the county announced it would begin recording videos of most committee and board meetings and storing them online.
