A screen shot of the City of Rio Rancho’s website, which ranked highest among municipalities in New Mexico in the audit.
The City of Rio Rancho’s website is the best among municipalities in the state for making information available to the public.
That’s according to the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, which on Wednesday released an audit of most city and county websites statewide.
Rio Rancho scored 84 out of a possible 95 in the audit. Albuquerque was second at 83. Los Alamos and Santa Fe both scored a 70, and Las Cruces scored a 67.
Anthony had the lowest score among cities, an eight. Grants scored a 20, Española scored a 30 and Raton scored a 31.
Among counties, Santa Fe and Bernalillo were tops, scoring 84 and 83, respectively. The lowest were Harding at 14, Cibola at 18, and Quay at 19.
“Government websites should be resources for the public to easily access key information,” said Gregory Williams, president of the FOG board and an Albuquerque attorney. “This audit is intended to assist government bodies to better manage websites and present useful public data in accessible formats.”
Williams added that nationwide the gold standard is for online government information to be downloadable, searchable and sortable, not if PDF form.
“FOG is available to government bodies needing guidance to implement website improvements,” Williams added. “Our organization’s primary mission is to educate citizens, professionals and public officials about their rights and responsibilities under New Mexico’s open government laws.”
The audit was conducted in February and March 2015 and updated in July 2015. During that 4-5 month period, a number of cities and counties improved their scores by posting additional information. The website audit was made possible by grants from the LANL Foundation and Santa Fe philanthropist Dee Ann McIntyre, FOG said.