Saugerties Village Board members have been discussing subscribing to TextMyGov, a smartphone application that simplifies citizens’ communication with government. The main question the board has wrestled with — the cost of the service — appears to have been solved through the town’s interest in subscribing to the service.
At the village board’s regular meeting on Monday, August 19, mayor Bill Murphy said the Town of Saugerties has signed up for the service, and the village will be able to try the service out through the town’s account.
The town passed it on Wednesday [August 14], and they are covering it for a year and including us,” Murphy said. “So basically the town is providing us for a year of TextMyGov so we can see if we want to stick with it. After a year, if we come back and see it’s not working for us, it’s not going to affect the town, but we shouldn’t kill it.” On the other hand, “If, after a year, we feel it’s working for us, we renew it then.”
When the town and village were considering separate plans, the cost would have been $18,000 per year, and that was only going to be 110,000 text transmissions, said Mike Campbell. “Combined, it’s only $12,000 per year and transmissions up to 500,000. So that was kind of interesting.”
“In the first year, village residents can sign up for the program and have their own accounts for a year at no cost to us, and at the end of the year if it’s working, we’ll know it then,” Murphy said. After the year, if the village decides to stay with the plan, the village and town would negotiate how the cost would be split.
On its website, https://textmygov.com/, the company lists the many kinds of information citizens can receive from their local government and transmit. Government payments, emergencies, procedures, questions to board members or supervisors, questions to specific departments, such as public works or parks or water, report emergencies and more. At a previous meeting, treasurer Paula Kerbert said she and village clerk Peggy Melville spent a good deal of time answering questions from residents. A system that answered questions or directed questions to the proper departments would take this burden off them. TextMyGov would relieve the office staff of the need to answer queries, giving them more time to concentrate on their work, she said.
The system would provide immediate information about such problems as a road being washed out, or a tree that has come down — citizens could notify the village of such events, or the village could post messages to users, the mayor pointed out.
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