The survey of 120 city and county Web sites also found that, of those that do have a Web site, the vast majority provides only basic information, not the e-government services that keep citizens from having to visit the local courthouse or city hall.
"I was not surprised at the number of city and county governments in Kentucky without a Web presence," said Dr. Linda Johnson, president of the Center for Information Technology Enterprise (CITE), the entity responsible for the connectkentucky project work. "I was surprised that we didn't have a larger number of those we surveyed with increasing levels of sophistication in their Web sites."
The assessment was commissioned by the connectkentucky Steering Committee to respond to Governor Patton's request to review current use of the Internet by business, government and consumers. The survey results are located on connectkentucky's Web site.
"We have raised a generation of Kentuckians who expect to pay their property taxes, renew their driver's licenses, and sign their children up for soccer online," Johnson said. "This survey shows that local governments are not meeting these expectations."
Kentucky officials are concerned, Johnson said, and the state will set a plan in motion to work with local governments to help them develop Web sites and electronic-government services.
"It's certainly something that needs to be addressed," she said. "If Kentucky is going to be competitive in the networked world, cities and counties across the state will need to be able to interact with an increasingly sophisticated constituency that expects e-government services online in an interactive, transaction-based way."
CITE works on creating a collaborative environment for business, industry, government and higher education to work on problems facing Kentucky, Johnson said, a role she said local governments have told her will be necessary to address the lack of electronic government services.
"The connectkentucky Steering Committee is working with the Kentucky League of Cities and other partners to create solutions for this problem," said Dr. Bill Brundage, connectkentucky co-chair and commissioner of the Governor's Office for the New Economy.
