Century Accepts Bid For Website Redesign

March 22, 2018

The Town of Century will soon have a new website, accepting a bid that came in under their $7,500 budget.

The site will be built and hosted by the Municode, a Tallahassee based firm. Century currently contracts with the company to make their code of ordinances available online.

Municode submitted a base bid of $4,000 for design, development and implementation of a new website and $1,500 for annual hosting, maintenance and customer support. An interest-free four year payment plan was offered.  Municode has been in business for 66 years and works with over 4,200 government agencies across the country.

The full feature site will be constructed using a content management system (CMS) that will allow town employees to keep the site updated with little effort. The site is expected to be live about three months after Century completes the contract and submits the necessary information.

The town’s current website was last updated in early 2015.

Proposals were received from five other companies.

  • A three-page proposal from Level Up Web Design in Pensacola was determined by the council not to meet the RFP requirements.
  • Menadena in Keene, NH, submitted a proposal that exceeded budget with a first year cost of $10,112.
  • A proposal from Site Metropolis provided for a base price for site design at $2,000 and a “monthly maintenance” fee of $500, for an initial year cost of $8,000, plus $6,000 per additional year. The proposal was not considered due to cost.
  • Taylorsday of Rahway, NJ, offered a $7,500 web design plan plus ongoing costs of $960 in license fees and $150 year for third-party plugins.
  • GovUnity’s proposal was “not to exceed $6,400″ with a monthly cost of $75, billed annual. The council briefly discussed the proposal, but felt the company was not a good fit for Century.

Full disclosure: NorthEscambia.com was hired by vote of the full Century Town Council to review the technical aspects of the website RFP, evaluate the technical aspects of the review criteria, evaluate each submitted proposal, attend the selection workshop and answer any technical questions from the council. We disclosed at that time that we would not submit a bid on the proposal. Our total bill for services rendered is estimated to be $400.

Pictured: The Town of Century’s current website, which has had no apparent updates since February 2015. NorthEscambia.com image.

Comments

3 Responses to “Century Accepts Bid For Website Redesign”

  1. Citizen on March 23rd, 2018 1:36 am

    The goal of a municipal website is to comply with transparency and accountability in government which this website being up and running is long over due.

    Here is an older link with guidelines we should expect such as the budget online. The agenda AHEAD of time, the minutes of the meetings and more.

    We expect more professionalism now with this changing of the guards.

    http://floridafaf.org/faf-report-card-local-government-website-transparency/

  2. Micah on March 22nd, 2018 7:19 pm

    The design they have now would work just fine if they had someone to update it. Being flashy and being functional are two different things. If it’s not responsive, it doesn’t fulfill it’s purpose.

    I love northescambia.com because it’s lightweight and loads fast as heck regardless of what platform, browser or screen size you’re on. It doesn’t care if you’re on a PowerBook or an Blackberry. Go ahead, load this site in IE6. I dare you.

    Good design is as little design as possible.

  3. Citizen on March 22nd, 2018 7:07 pm

    Thanks for your expertise NE and work to bring stories of Century to the public. I am glad they are getting their own website also.;)

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News 

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