The City of Watertown provided the following announcement:
The Watertown Technology Department is proud to announce the award of $457,965 in Massachusetts Community Compact Grants in Fiscal Year 2023.
The Community Compact Cabinet was established by the Baker-Polito Administration in January 2015 as one of its first actions after taking office, with the goal of strengthening the state’s partnership with cities and towns and to allow the Administration to work more closely with municipal leaders. Led by Lt. Governor Polito, the Cabinet champions municipal interests across all executive secretariats and agencies, and develops, in consultation with cities and towns, mutual standards and best practices for both the state and municipalities.
Watertown is grateful for the opportunity to participate in this amazing program and excited to complete the projects funded for FY 2023.
The Watertown Technology Department received awards in three categories:
• Best Practices
• Information Technology
• Municipal Fiber
The Best Practices program is based on voluntary, mutual Community Compact agreements that individual cities and towns have entered into with the Commonwealth. In a Community Compact, a municipality agrees to implement at least one government best practice based on its unique needs and areas for improvement, such as best practices related to financial management, housing, public accessibility, or public health.
Watertown received funding for two projects in the Best Practices category.
$9,900 was awarded as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Best Practice to implement FlashVote. The public engagement goal in this category seeks to develop an initiative to improve and increase community engagement, particularly with underrepresented members of the community and young people and improve access to local government. FlashVote provides scientific polling services to help Watertown engage the entire community in an equitable way.
$9,640 was awarded as an Information Technology Best Practice to implement eCode360 MapLink Interactive Zoning. The IT goal in this category seeks to develop a document and/or records management strategy that results in operational efficiencies and improved responsiveness to the public. MapLink will connect property specific zoning information found in our online code at ecode360.com/WA4234 to the public map found at watertownma.mapgeo.io with an interactive tool.
The Information Technology (IT) grant program focuses on driving innovation and transformation at the local level via investments in technology.
$190,300 was awarded in the IT Grant category to scan and make available online Watertown’s property records. Approximately one million one hundred sixty-five thousand (1,165,000) pages of Zoning and Planning documents will be scanned, indexed, and uploaded to the public Laserfiche Document Management System at watertown-ma.gov/docs. These documents will also be linked to the public map at watertownma.mapgeo.io.
The Municipal Fiber grant program was established in the Fiscal Year 2022 Capital Investment Plan to help municipalities undertake fiber network-related technology infrastructure initiatives that will improve the functioning of local government and enable long-term cost savings.
$248,125 was awarded in the Municipal Fiber grant category to assist Watertown in the completion of a city-owned fiber ring network connecting all municipal and school buildings.
“The City of Watertown sincerely thanks the Office of Governor Charlie Baker and Lt. Governor Karyn Polito, Executive Office for Administration and Finance, Executive Office of Technology Services and Security, and Community Compact Cabinet for the opportunity to fund these exciting and impactful projects,” said Christopher McClure, Watertown CIO.