Dutchess County recently has been nationally recognized for its use of technology to improve how government connects with residents.

Dutchess County Wins Numerous Center for Digital Government Government Experience Awards

The Government Experience Awards aims to highlight government agencies that are radically improving the experience of government services. The Center for Digital Government's awards are now on their 6th year, and Dutchess County has been highly recognized in a couple of categories.

Dutchess County is 1 of 11 counties in the nation to receive a Project Experience Award for its long-range transportation plan website for MovingDutchessForward.com. The website was developed on behalf of the Dutchess County Transportation Council, which is a the first digital presentation of the County's transportation plan, which is reviewed every 5 years. MovingDutchessForward, the County's 25 year plan to improve transportation, is meant to be flexible, allowing users to easily understand the Council's findings, goals and proposed future projects. The website is interactive with its customizable approach with dynamic mapping to data integration. The website even allows users to share comments on the plans as they explore, allowing for easy public insight.

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The recognition does not stop there. The County's Office of Central and Information Services (OCIS) also ranked third place nationwide among county governments for its overall technology experience. Dutchess County was among only 5 other counties across the nation to receive an Overall County Government Experience Award for its commitment to accessibility, inclusiveness and being citizen centric. The award specifically highlights:

  • The Parks and Trails App - The app allows users to explore nearly 200 parks and 400 miles of trails scattered throughout Dutchess County
  • DutchessDelivery - The County's public outreach tool that sends out news releases, emergency updates, upcoming events and other important information to residents.
  • Geographic Information System - This earned the County 5th place in the CDG 2022 Digital Counties Survey
  • Dutchessny.gov - The county website was recognized for its focus on accessibility, plain language practices, and inclusivity features such as the ReciteMe application. ReciteMe allows visitors to customize the site to meet their needs through text-to-speech functionality, font adjustment for dyslexia, an interactive dictionary, a transition tool, and many other features.

County Executive Marc Molinaro said, “This year’s awards from the Center for Digital Government highlight the dedication of the team at OCIS and our commitment to ensuring Dutchess County’s technology resources are efficient and user-centric, both for employees and residents. Congratulations to the OCIS team on this most recent accolade.”

“The government experience continues to be a major priority for state and local government agencies as they seek to rapidly meet new citizen and employee expectations,” said Dustin Haisler, Chief Innovation Officer for CDG. “It’s very inspiring to see agencies taking a human-centric approach to service delivery as leading agencies seek to incorporate digital equity, accessibility, and inclusion into the experiences they enable.”

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