| Questionable use of your taxpayer monies? |
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| DOL Blog | ||||||
| Thursday, 29 May 2008 | ||||||
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Welcome to the first installment of the Dumont Online blog. This will be more or less an editorial section of the site regarding Borough goings-on. And the first topic is: in these tough economic times, should our town be quadrupling what it pays per month for a Borough web site? But how about the necessity of the Borough paying for a new Borough web site in an amount almost four times as much as its current site, for features and functionality that it could have pretty much gotten in their entirety from the Borough's current web site company - at virtually no increase in price? Virtual Town Pages (which operates Dumont Online) has been operating the Borough web site since 2006, at the fee of $399 per month. Recently, the Borough has entered into an agreement for a new web site with a new vendor, which includes certain e-mail and text message notification capabilities. From what we've been told, the Borough will be paying the sum of $1,500.00 per month for the service. That's more than some Dumont families spend each month for food. That's $18,000.00 a year - more than some Dumont residents earn in a year. The contract was not put out for bid. The Borough issued no Request for Qualifications to solicit alternate competitive proposals from other vendors. For some yet-unknown reason, the Borough focused on one and only one vendor for the job: a company called Xquizit Technologies which is located in Nutley and which calls it web services C3. At no time did the Borough ever ask its current web site vendor to incorporate such features into the existing Borough web site. There are a number of issues here that will be addressed in depth in subsequent installments of this blog, including: • How can the Borough justify increasing its spending, and the implicit burden upon Dumont taxpayers, almost four-fold for its web site during tough economic times, while other towns in Bergen County are seeking to curb municipal spending and are necessarily looking to cut back? • How truly necessary are the additional features for our small town, and why would the Borough choose to focus on one specific company rather than seeking competitive proposals from other companies, including the Borough's current web site vendor? • Why should the Borough spend taxpayers' monies for services that they might have been able to obtain for residents free, or at a dramatically decreased cost? These issues, and others, will each be explored in depth in future installments. Please check back again soon for subsequent blog entries on this thread, and log in to our discussion forum to share your thoughts. (Next installment in this thread will be posted live on Friday, May 30 between 7-9PM)
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