LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The state is funding a project to enhance transparency in town government.

 

The Board of Selectmen on Monday agreed to contracts with cleargov.com and Civics Plus, both eyed to make information about the town much more accessible to the public.

 

The former is mostly financially-based and allows residents and town officials to easily craft charts and track historical data about town spending. The latter will revamp the town's website, making information much more easily accessible.

 

"It is pretty impressive for sure. I think a lot of people will be interested to see from year to year," said Chairman John Goerlach after seeing a presentation from a representative of cleargov.com about the website.

 

Town Manager Kelli Robbins said the state's Community Compact Program granted the town $20,000 for both. The grant will get both websites up and running with all of the data entered plus a few years of subscriptions.

 

Civics Plus is well used throughout the commonwealth to create town websites. The grant will pay $10,000 for the company to completely revamp Lanesborough's website and Robbins praised the work the company has done in a number of other towns. 

 

ClearGov brings a different aspect to town government. The website already created a profile for every town and school district in the state based on state data. With the contract, however, the town will send line budget information to the company, and the company will create charts for residents to more easily see where their money is spent. The town can also use it for public presentations through creating comparative graphs with any community in the state, down to individual budget line comparisons.

 

"You can use our system to compare to communities with similar road mileages," said Lena Pelekoudas, giving an example of the numerous ways to sort and make comparisons.

 

Pelekoudas walked through the program showing what the presentations look like for the public and what the administrators can do with the numbers. She outlined how town officials can make different graphs and design presentations more suited for the particular item, and embedded them into the town's website.

 

Robbins has particularly been pushing for ClearGov because of her experience using it in other towns. She said it really helps residents see where their tax money is going and why.

 

"I'm really excited to make the financial information more readily accessible to the residents," she said. 

 

The Board of Selectmen liked the presentation and without hesitation signed the contract with the company. Pelekoudas said to get the town's page up and running takes between one and three months, depending on the time it takes for the information to be entered and approved by town officials.

 

Pelekoudas said the website was founded by a man who felt his tax bill didn't provide enough information. That led him to create the website to better explain municipal finances.

 

"It is big and easy to read," Robbins said. "It is also very visually easy and intuitive."

 

The Community Compact grant program has been headed by Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito. The state crafted an array of best practices and towns who sign compacts with the state are eligible to apply for funds for planning, technical assistance, or implementation. 

 

Transparency is one of those best practices. Both Pittsfield and Hinsdale utilized the funds from that best practice to completely rework the budget presentations, changing what would previously have best been described as "inside baseball" to something much more informative and easily read and interpreted. Pittsfield even won an award for its budget presentation.