In a City of Full of Web Developers, City of Austin Spends $3 Million For a Website to Nowhere

[atomheartbevo 89844]

https://alpha.austin.gov

https://www.kxan.com/investigations/after-years-of-work-and-3m-spent-austin-pulls-plug-on-new-website-effort/

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While problems on the City of Austin’s vaccine registration webpage may be new, city officials have acknowledged the need for a better website for years. To that end, Austin’s technology leaders made it a goal in 2017 to build an improved and more user-friendly site. The revamped website would bring more services online, from looking up building permits to food assistance. It would be available in more languages and more accessible to people with vision, motor and cognitive disabilities, according to internal project records obtained by KXAN through the Texas Public Information Act.

The city set ambitious goals: 600 of the highest-priority city services would be available online by September 2021, according to one internal project “roadmap” from the Communications and Technology Management Department.

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The idea was that Technology Department content teams would transition city services to a new website, according to an early project brief. Technology Department employees would build out features that support forms, account management, payments and reservations. They would also train workers in other city departments to write user-friendly content, and residents would test new features.

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The new website would be built separate from the current one at austintexas.gov, and the city planned to replace its current website with the new one, according to internal documents.

“An alpha release of the new site can be found at Alpha.austin.gov,” according to one document, referring to a website that can still be accessed as of this report. “This site will stand in parallel to the current Austintexas.gov until essential services and content have been transitioned, at which point Austintexas.gov will be retired.”

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But, that never happened. The city has not reached many of its original goals for the new website, and only a fraction of the city’s services and features have been transitioned. Now, with a tab exceeding $3 million on a project that was not specifically approved by City Council, the city plans to decommission the second website.

A public information specialist with the Technology Department said the $3 million was for more than just building a website and included funding “research, innovation, testing, and community engagement to inform how we design our digital services.”

“These learnings will be carried over into the future developments on austintexas.gov. After reviewing the state of the project in 2020, it was determined that current approach was not financially sustainable and a decision was made to begin a transition of features and content to austintexas.gov and to focus all resources on the single site moving forward,” the spokesperson said in an email.

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Several years after the city decided to begin developing alpha.austin.gov, it is clearly still a site under construction. It even directs users back to the city’s current site, austintexas.gov.

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When we first asked the city’s Technology Department about the alpha site, a spokesperson told us it was “iteratively developed and designed to test service oriented features,” so Technology Department employees could see what was and wasn’t working.

“This test environment is known as a ‘sandbox’ and allows for innovation and testing that isn’t timebound,” a spokesperson with Technology Department told us in an email.

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KXAN dug through hundreds of pages of internal project records obtained from the Technology Department. They show the budget to build the new website grew to more than $3 million.

A budget proposal for 2019 requested $350,000 for the new site. Of that, $50,000 would cover web hosting, software and equipment; and $300,000 would pay temporary staff for “content strategy & copywriting, engineering, quality assurance, and release management, operations, and translation services.”

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“Since the launch of Austin’s Design, Technology, and Innovation Fellows program in 2016, Austin has become a world leader in hiring design & technology specialists into government and establishing practices for user-centered design and open-source development at the municipal level,” the document said. “This proposal provides resources to continue to lead in this space, collaborate with other leading governments, and develop the future structure for design and technology at the City of Austin.”

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By September 2020, budget documents show the city had spent close to $3.2 million on the new website. That mostly included salaries for temporary employees that totaled more than $1 million in both 2019 and 2020.

Temporary staff may work across a portfolio of ongoing projects, the city told us. The number of Technology Department temporary employees working on the website project ranged from 10 to 19 people, but those people only reported 61.5% of their hours were spent working on it, a spokesperson said.

 

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89844]

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To get more context about the cost of such a project, we reached out Denver-based EvoGov, Inc., which builds municipal government websites. The company has about 400 customers, according to its President, John McKown.

McKown noted that EvoGov is currently one of the finalists to redesign a website for a municipality of about 1 million residents. The total cost? Under $100,000. He says the most his company has charged to redesign a website was about $200,000, and that was for a county with a population larger than Austin’s.

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“The scope of the project is so key to all of this,” he said, referring to Austin’s efforts. “Is the scope super ambitious? Was the scope not defined enough, and it just kept expanding?”

“You’re talking close to 20 people that are all making a high hourly rate, and what I see missing is the list of applications, the goals, the timeline, the scope,” he added.

McKown said the difference between the city’s efforts and those of his company may be all the testing and iterations involved.

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“We don’t necessarily need to go and have a room full of people click on things and see which ones are going to work better because we already know,” McKown said.

He said cities with more than 300,000 people tend to have in-house development teams.

For example, the city of Houston told us its latest web redesign in 2018 was done that way, and it would have cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars to go with an outside contractor instead.

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Despite Austin’s web redesign project ballooning to more than $3 million in about three years, it was never initially brought to Austin City Council for approval. The Technology Department says it never envisioned the project as a “single standalone program.”

“The requested funding was included in the annual budgeting process and was approved by Council when the overall budget was approved,” said a department spokesperson. “Most of the budget has been allocated to hiring temporary City of Austin staff. Council does not approve staffing funds beyond its approval of the annual budget.” 

As a freelancer on small sites, some of this stuff is boggling.

[atomheartbevo 89844]

City Council never voted on it.  

But the best people are on it.

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No Austin City Council member accepted our request for an interview when we asked if they were aware of the project. The offices of two council members, Leslie Pool and Mackenzie Kelly, said they were looking into it.

 

[Orange&White 5539]

Think of how many bike lanes could have been created......

 

J/K...they will still create those as well. They don't give a fuck about taxpayer money.

 

Next thing you will see is a $10M contract to some private company to do the job.

[atomheartbevo 89844]

1 hour ago, Orange&White said:

Think of how many bike lanes could have been created......

J/K...they will still create those as well. They don't give a fuck about taxpayer money.

Next thing you will see is a $10M contract to some private company to do the job.

Wait, you're saying Austin should develop a separate city website for bicyclists..

I like the cut of your jib.  We should setup the company right now, and lobby for that contract.

[cam4mav 771]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

City Council never voted on it.  

But the best people are on it.

 

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Mackenzie Kelly

 

Spoiler

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by cam4mav

[ztejas 43549]

25 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Wait, you're saying Austin should develop a separate city website for bicyclists..

I like the cut of your jib.  We should setup the company right now, and lobby for that contract.

Can we just set up a separate city for bicyclists?

Edited February 12, 2021 by ztejas

[atomheartbevo 89844]

5 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Can we just set up a separate city for bicyclists?

Bastrop?

Maybe we can build a bike trail that leads up to a ramp that funnels them into a train, and then ship them to Bastrop?

Since they love riding their bikes for long periods of time, the commute to Austin should be awesome for them.

Edited February 12, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[AUS-97HORN 11824]

doesnt surprise me.  On  no fewer than 8 different occasions in the last 10 days, I sat down to finally schedule my vaccine appt and refreshed the APH site 40+ times in a row.. being told each and every time that no more apointments are available with no other option but to refresh and resubmit.

Im well above the 300 attempt level and still have no fucking appointment.

How the fuck do you let a site fail that bad?

 

* and I am aware this wasnt the APH site that was taken down. 

Edited February 12, 2021 by AUS-97HORN

[gsoda3 3283]

tl;dr version-  city of austin wasted over 3 million in an effort to redesign our city website.  after all that money, the "new" website is getting scrapped.  it never went live except for a "test" run where most of the modules didn't even work.  something like this should have cost maybe $500,000.  

[Pato del Muerto 52623]

Is this not the kind of thing you can leverage the giant local university to do or at least assist in at a discount price?

[mulletpelini 5216]

I've got a ice/snow removal system I'd like to sell your city.  What's it worth.

[TKthunder2 4999]

Where is Pasken to tell me how this is all part of a grand plan and how it’s for the best?

[Wally Fairway 5590]

longcat post is long

[gsoda3 3283]

13 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Is this not the kind of thing you can leverage the giant local university to do or at least assist in at a discount price?

or you know, have your own in house developers do? 

[atomheartbevo 89844]

13 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Is this not the kind of thing you can leverage the giant local university to do or at least assist in at a discount price?

Does that giant local university have a respected computer science department?

 

[Guest Lobo]

You'd be awfully surprised at how bad the current council/mayor's office torched its relationship with UT.  And yeah, a lot of it started with the homelessness situation.

[Jerry Callo 8744]

Always wondered what happened to the firm that rolled out the Obamacare website.

[Guest Lobo]

I'm betting dollars to donuts that Greg Casar had a friend at SolarWinds who was looking to makeup for the Dept. of Treasury debacle, and so Greg threw him this site building contract.  'Cause you know...fuck the taxpayers.  Helluva thing to attempt when one rating agency already downgraded Austin, and the other two are looking to do the same at some point in 2021.  Fucking imbeciles.  

[Cajun 11753]

The circling of the drain of ATX is so much more fun to watch at a distance.

#popcorn/gif doesn't even come close to begging to describe it.

[Armybrat 40932]

15 hours ago, mulletpelini said:

I've got a ice/snow removal system I'd like to sell your city.  What's it worth.

Submit it, then retire in Tahiti.

[RDCanecutter 26476]

11 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Submit it, then also sell it in Tahiti.

fif max grift.

[TwiceHorn 31583]

Where's Kalil Isaza Tuzman when you really need him?

[Homercles 10206]

I wondered about this...is the challenge integrating all the disparate systems across departments to some form of common architecture (back end) or did they really blow $3M just trying to get the front end?

[BradInATX 9208]

3 hours ago, Cajun said:

The circling of the drain of ATX is so much more fun to watch at a distance.

#popcorn/gif doesn't even come close to begging to describe it.

 

Sixth fastest growing large city in the US, businesses coming to the city in droves, property values skyrocketing, staggeringly low unemployment. "Circling the drain".

But if your little fantasy makes you happy, that's all that matters.

Edited February 12, 2021 by BradInATX

[Cajun 11753]

Sorry I triggered you brah.

ATX White Knighting is serious business.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Cajun

[BradInATX 9208]

4 minutes ago, Cajun said:

Sorry I triggered you brah.

ATX White Knighting is serious business.

I left Austin because it's not for me anymore. It's full of transplants and Californians, it's become pretentious, and it has lots of other issues. But "circling the drain" it is most definitely not. It's one of the most thriving cities in the country.

[smuggs 9353]

5 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

I left Austin because it's not for me anymore. 

Username does not check out.

[BradInATX 9208]

Username does not check out.

Maybe I moved to Amarillo..

[CooterBrown 18033]

57 minutes ago, Homercles said:

I wondered about this...is the challenge integrating all the disparate systems across departments to some form of common architecture (back end) or did they really blow $3M just trying to get the front end?

City:  "We don't know what needs to be done or what it will cost, so we expect you to figure that out for us."

Vendor:  "We don't know what we will do but we bill monthly and will bill whatever it takes."

City: "Get to it!"

 

 

 

[mulletpelini 5216]

1 hour ago, BradInATX said:

I left Austin because it's not for me anymore. It's full of transplants and Californians, it's become pretentious, and it has lots of other issues. But "circling the drain" it is most definitely not. It's one of the most thriving cities in the country.

Sounds bad enough to classify it that way to me.  "Hey this is the way we did it back in California"

"Oh really? Why aren't you still there then?"

[Chet Steadman 940]

Why in the world does there need to be “community engagement” around a website?

And if it was actually needed, the community’s sole feedback likely would have been nothing more than “we don’t give a shit, just get it done.”

Which the city of course, failed on spectacularly.   

Edited February 12, 2021 by Chet Steadman

[Guest Lobo]

Yeah, a mandatory solicitation for community engagement period for a site to inform people about basic city services is insane, even for this City Council.  

I promise we spent 50-100k to have people go around to homeless encampments to get their feedback/input on this website as well.  You know...instead of having those same people offer them mental health treatment, addiction treatment, or job re-training...we asked them if they felt the site layout was helpful to those with hearing impairments.  

And in City of Austin fashion, we allocated 2% of the $3mm budget to have a public art sculpture placed inside the website.  How we're going to get an 800 pound 3-D bronze sculpture inside of a website remains to me seen.  So we'll probably be forming a community group to look into the new challenge.  

[atomheartbevo 89844]

4 hours ago, BradInATX said:

I left Austin because it's not for me anymore. It's full of transplants and Californians, it's become pretentious, and it has lots of other issues. But "circling the drain" it is most definitely not. It's one of the most thriving cities in the country.

It won't be allowed to circle the drain, because it has too many people and businesses moving in, keeping them from having to be fiscally responsible.

[atomheartbevo 89844]

5 hours ago, Homercles said:

I wondered about this...is the challenge integrating all the disparate systems across departments to some form of common architecture (back end) or did they really blow $3M just trying to get the front end?

58 minutes ago, Chet Steadman said:

Why in the world does there need to be “community engagement” around a website?

And if it was actually needed, the community’s sole feedback likely would have been nothing more than “we don’t give a shit, just get it done.”

51 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Yeah, a mandatory solicitation for community engagement period for a site to inform people about basic city services is insane, even for this City Council.  

The crazy/shitty thing is, this kind of project is not inventing or reinventing the wheel.  Literally every other city/municipality in the nation has to do this, and many without the budget that Austin has.  And most of this shit is dealing with services the city already has available.

What the City of Austin is wanting to do is make more services accessible on the website, and making existing services more easily accessible. This is entirely legitimate - the more stuff they can make easily accessible, the more people will be inclined to use the website, rather than walk-in or phone services, which saves money in the long run.  

This is Website 101, but instead of a blog or a hobby site where you are trying to keep people on the site longer, both for advertising, but also so that they find the site valuable and enjoyable and will come back (or spread the word), this is a city site.  The point is to easily make a massive amount of information and services easy-to-find.

If those services/APIs/databases/etc. already exist within the city's infrastructure, which they do, then it's basically a usability and design issue.

They could go over to Austin Community College, put out a call for those who are studying web design or development (ACC has a degree and various programs dedicated to web design or development), offer the students a small amount of money and something to put on their resume, and say

• Okay, check this list out - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population 
• Go and look at the websites of top 25 cities (the top 10 all have at least 1 million people, but we can cast the net wider) and their respective counties
• Write up reports about their cities' and counties' websites - what works well, what doesn't work well
• In these reports, mention whether the cities are doing their sites in-house, or if they are using a vendor, get the name of the vendor
• Look at what services these organizations were providing to their online customers, and how they are organized
• Develop a design best-practices and worst-practices list from these 25 cities.

And if they need to bring in outside vendors to run some of the infrastructure that would be too expensive to do internally, nothing wrong with that, many organizations do it.

Just make sure those vendors don't have the words "Solar" or "Winds" in their company name.

[ChickenSandwich 9856]

17 hours ago, BradInATX said:

 

Sixth fastest growing large city in the US, businesses coming to the city in droves, property values skyrocketing, staggeringly low unemployment. "Circling the drain".

But if your little fantasy makes you happy, that's all that matters.

Well it’s now Brad free so we’ve got that going for us. 
 

*all of these businesses moving near Travis county, not to it. 

[BillyBadAss 189]

 

[Godzillatron 292]

City’s website and integrated 311 service went down today. $3M apparently doesn’t go very far any more.

[ButtFumble 5183]

On 2/11/2021 at 6:56 PM, gsoda3 said:

tl;dr version-  city of austin wasted over 3 million in an effort to redesign our city website.  after all that money, the "new" website is getting scrapped.  it never went live except for a "test" run where most of the modules didn't even work.  something like this should have cost maybe $500,000.  

shit I can use frontpage and wix to design something that does not work for half of that

[Hagbard Celine 10937]

On 2/11/2021 at 7:28 PM, mulletpelini said:

I've got a ice/snow removal system I'd like to sell your city.  What's it worth.

this post held up well

[Armybrat 40932]

On 2/11/2021 at 7:28 PM, mulletpelini said:

I've got a ice/snow removal system I'd like to sell your city.  What's it worth.

 

[Wally Pryor 5263]

I've not seen anything about the city engaging a consultant for $75K to figure out why $3MM was spent on absolutely nothing.   

So there's that.  Still time to do so, I'm sure.  

[Homercles 10206]

Maybe their dev server lab was on contract with Griddy

[Wally Pryor 5263]

Along the lines. Budgets should never be mentioned as an issue with the city because they're a bottomless pit. 

 

 

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The City of Austin doesn’t know how much it spends on technology each year and doesn’t keep a citywide inventory of the technology it owns. These are just a couple of the findings in a new city auditor’s report.

The audit, presented to several city council members this week, notes there are several issues with the city’s process to purchase technology.  

Planning for purchases is largely left to individual departments and not done consistently or coordinated, according to the audit. The city’s process to purchase technology generally involves multiple parties, like city council, the Communications & Technology Management Department, the Corporate Purchasing Office and other city departments.

Auditors looked at the city’s technology purchasing process between 2019 and 2021. They paint a picture of a dysfunctional process which lacks communication or knowledge of what the city already owns.

 

“Imagine you are living in a house with four other roommates who do not communicate much. Each of you goes to the grocery store and buys food, but none of you has a list or knows what is in the pantry before you go,” auditors wrote metaphorically. “When everyone gets home, how much food did you buy that was already in the house? How many of you bought the same thing? This is like how the City buys technology except the City’s process is on a much larger scale.

https://www.kxan.com/investigations/city-of-austin-doesnt-track-technology-it-purchases-audit-finds/

 

 

[High Plains Drifter 11052]

On 2/11/2021 at 6:13 PM, ztejas said:

Can we just set up a separate city for bicyclists?

 

I'd live there (maybe).

 

[Hanrahan 1306]

Top men.

[atomheartbevo 89844]

2 hours ago, Wally Pryor said:

Along the lines. Budgets should never be mentioned as an issue with the city because they're a bottomless pit. 

City of Austin:  PAY ATTENTION TO US WE ARE A MAJOR AMERICAN CITY AND SHOULD BE TREATED WITH RESPECT.

Also,

City of Austin: We still run everything like we are a sleepy little town where the mayor's nephew is charge of picking out whether we use one of those new-fangled DOS computers or Banana or Grape or Apple or whatever computers.  By the way, don't let word get out that Deputy Fife only has one bullet.

[Fudge Nuggets 19228]

4 hours ago, Wally Pryor said:

The City of Austin doesn’t know how much it spends on technology each year and doesn’t keep a citywide inventory of the technology it owns.

These are good things for someone with little to no ethics to know.

[atomheartbevo 89844]

4 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

These are good things for someone with little to no ethics to know.

It's a great way to boost the amount of job applications that they get for certain jobs.

[Texas Jeff 1945]

This is a city that owns a non-profit that owns a hotel.  The non-profit doesn't run the hotel, just kinda oversees the folks running the hotel.  The non-profit has exactly one employee, who is paid about $150,000 to spend no more than 20 hrs per week running the non-profit.  This involves maintaining a website and running a once a month meeting.

And that one employee is an ex-city council member with no background in hotel management.

Find your grift folks and you will be OK.