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National League of Cities' Totally Web Government Program Adds Features

Local governments have another way to create Web sites.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In response to a growing interest in e-government from cities and their citizens, the National League of Cities has announced the recent addition of a variety of new interactive applications as part of the NLC/IBM Totally Web Government (TWG) program to provide extensive e-government services to cities and towns.

The TWG program began as a small pilot project in 2000 with a focus on providing small and rural communities with a capability to create and maintain an initial city home page on a Web site. Since that time, small cities around the country have been using the TWG tool, and officials nationwide have praised the TWG program for offering an affordable way to easily create, maintain and update their Web sites.

The TWG program has added a second Web page creation tool, giving cities the option of developing a "style driven" or "database driven" home page. In addition, new TWG applications are now available that provide cities with capabilities to conduct interactive informational and financial transactions through the city home page.

"Through the TWG program, and particularly with the addition of these new applications, we are giving cities a powerful new tool to reach and interact with their citizens and local businesses," said Don Borut, executive director of the NLC.

For cities that are ready to add transactional capabilities to their home page, the TWG program offers a one-stop solution to add a variety of "modules" without having to purchase expensive software or hardware upgrades to the city computer system.

The modules include a Request for Action module allowing citizens to request information or report problems to the appropriate city department, a utility-billing module that will enable citizens to track their utility bills and pay the bills online and modules for issuing, renewing and accepting payment for local business licenses.

Other modules include a permit-tracking application to enable constituents to apply for and pay for building permits, and several tax billing and collection applications to enable citizens to pay property taxes online and businesses to report taxable sales and pay local sales taxes online.

Cities pay a one-time subscription fee for each module and a monthly, per-user charge. The fee includes on-line training to initially customize each application and ongoing help desk support.

A satellite broadband service that provides high-speed Internet access is also available through the TWG program, a feature that is of particular interest to rural communities with limited Internet access.

The National Association of Counties has also recently joined with the NLC and IBM as a sponsor of the Totally Web Government program, and, through this expanded national outreach and an evolving menu of applications, cities and counties now have the capacity to begin or expand an e-government program at their own pace in a way that is flexible and affordable.

Marc Shapiro, The National League of Cities