Council OKs $27,000 in budget to make site more user-friendly

Changes are coming to the City of Leander's official website after City Council approved up to $27,000 for an online upgrade.

"The common complaint is it's just hard to find things," City Manager Kent Cagle said. "While we want to have a lot of information on there, we don't want it to be so much that people can't find what they are looking for. That's really the main thing, is to be much more user-friendly and transparent and make it a real tool for our residents."

The new website should be online by the middle of 2013, he said. But staff must first find a company to design the site, and council must approve the proposal.

"There are a number of firms out there that specialize in municipal websites," Cagle said.

The company hired to build the new site will work with staff to assess the needs of each department. Cagle said he expects that process to take several months.

"Something that is also going to be really important to us is that the new site is pretty easy for all of our departments to update," he said. "Each individual department will be responsible for their own portion of the website."

Funds for the new website were approved with the budget Sept. 6.