American City & County and the Public Technology Institute
surveyed a broad base of subscribers to determine the state of IT
among local governments across the nation. The response rate was
healthy, with 68.2 percent coming from municipalities and 25.1
percent from counties. Given the ever-changing IT environment, we
asked a series of questions about new trends, including cloud
computing, app development, and mobile device ownership and
use.
One welcome surprise were the results to the question regarding
IT spending, especially considering the negative effects that lower
revenues have had on local governments. More than 78 percent of the
respondents said that their IT spending for the coming year would
be either the same or up from the current year. In addition to
being encouraging news to other local governments, the response
indicates that most communities' spending may have already hit
bottom. Of those who said that IT spending would be the same or
higher, 3.5 percent said that their spending would be significantly
higher, and 27.2 percent said that spending would be up. The fact
that 18.8 percent claimed that their budgets would be down from the
current year is evidence that not everyone has reached bottom.
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