BATON ROUGE, LA – Nov. 14, 2019 – Today, Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome announced the Center for Digital Government has named Baton Rouge a Top 10 Digital City for the fifth year in a row.

Baton Rouge placed fifth in this year’s ranking among mid-sized U.S. cities.

“Over the past few years, we have made significant strides toward transforming our City-Parish government into one that prioritizes technology, digital innovation, service and transparency across our organization and operations,” said Mayor Broome. “From expanding our award-winning Open Data BR program to streamlining the process for doing business with the City-Parish as we embark on the largest transportation program in the history of East Baton Rouge Parish, we are committed to using technology at every level to better serve our citizens and Baton Rouge community.”

Baton Rouge joins other top-ranked mid-sized cities like Norfolk, Virginia, Cape Coral, Florida, and Pasadena, California, as nationwide leaders in aligning technology with city goals to improve citizen and business experiences, save tax dollars through newfound efficiencies and boost transparency, cybersecurity and engagement.

In 2019, the City-Parish launched or advanced several initiatives through the strategic use of technology and digital platforms that are making a clear impact on City-Parish operations, as well as the delivery of key programs and services. These include:

• An efficiency study that identified more than $7 million in savings and prompted a full redesign of business processes that support some of the City-Parish’s most crucial IT systems.
• An internal analysis of the City-Parish’s communications infrastructure that is already saving $400,000 annually and will result in millions more in savings once the City-Parish fully implements a new unified communications system.
• Full deployment of the City-Parish’s new enterprise resource planning system, which is significantly improving the speed at which financial, purchasing and human resource data and business processes are managed, including shortening the vendor payment cycle to an average of 3 – 4 days from the point an invoice is entered into the system to the City-Parish issuing payment.
• An expanded Open Data BR portal and EBRGIS program, supported by an internal Data Governance Committee that meets regularly to identify and release new datasets into the public domain.
• A new cybersecurity program designed to protect the City-Parish against cyber threats and educate City-Parish employees on the risks of cyberattacks.
• The use of social media platforms like Nextdoor to distribute information and gather input from citizens, such as calculating damage assessments following Hurricane Barry.
• The launch of the City-Parish’s IT strategic plan, a three-year roadmap for expanding the use of technology to improve service delivery and achieve City-Parish goals and objectives.
• An expanded public safety common operational platform, or PSCOP, an interagency platform that uses risk terrain modeling and GIS technology to enhance crime-fighting efforts. The City-Parish recently received a $700,000 federal grant to expand this innovative use of technology.

For nearly 20 years, the Center for Digital Government has conducted the annual Digital Cities Survey to measure cities’ performance and innovation in using technology by distributing a comprehensive survey to all U.S. cities, towns, villages and consolidated city-county governments.

Each of this year’s honorees will be recognized Nov. 21 during the National League of Cities’ annual conference in San Antonio. For more information on the 2019 Digital City awards, visit: https://www.govtech.com/dc/articles/Digital-Cities-2019.html?page=4