Schaumburg ranks high for using technology to engage residents

Schaumburg has placed third in the nation among communities its size in a ranking of how well municipalities use new technologies to help their citizens interact with government.

The village's rating in the annual Digital Cities Survey is the highest its received since it began participating.

"This award inspires our village to continually look for ways in which we can improve our technology services so that we can provide a better user experience for the public," said Peter Schaak, Schaumburg's director of information technology.

Open to all municipalities in the nation, this year's survey sought to find which initiatives they were most proud of in the areas of citizen engagement, policy, operations, technology and data. This year's top-ranked cities and villages were found to be using cloud services, data analytics and mobile apps.

Schaumburg ranked third among all towns with a population of 74,999 or less.

"I commend the village's Information Technology Department for always setting the bar high every year," Mayor Al Larson said. "Technology is so critical to everything we do here in Schaumburg. It's important we look ahead to develop innovative practices and models that allow us to serve the public in the best way possible."

Schaumburg will be among the 10 top-ranked cities honored at a special awards ceremony this week at the National League of Cities' annual conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Center for Digital Government, which runs the survey, is a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. For more information, visit govtech.com/dc/digital-cities/Digital-Cities-Survey-2015-Winners-Announced.html.