After a final review of submitted bids for a website, the City of Butler has selected two contractors to build a new website for the city that will offer dozens of new features for residents.

City council selected Neumeric and Weblinx to build the website at its Thursday, May 29, meeting. The cost of their website proposal totaled $59,500, with two annual maintenance options. The standard maintenance option costs $9,000 per year, while a more comprehensive option costs $15,000 per year.

Councilman Don Shearer explained to council before the vote that annual maintenance costs would need to be renewed every year, but would also dissipate into an hourly support rate after enough time.

“While this is the range of their basic packages for support after launch, they said once we are proficient, they will again give us another option that will break it down to ... an hourly charge,” Shearer explained. “They were very flexible and open to that.”

The timeline provided with their proposal estimates a six-and-a-half-month construction time. Afterward, they will offer unlimited training to city staff — a benefit highlighted by Shearer.

“Their plan included unlimited training, performance monitoring and compliance checks, all at a fixed cost,” Shearer said. “This will prevent unpredictable support expenses and reduce reliance on hourly billing as we’re first launching.”

At a city forum meeting on May 15, Shearer narrowed the 26 website bids down to five. He provided a summary of the five finalists’ proposals to the rest of council, highlighting the pros, cons and follow-up questions for each.

According to the proposal summary, Neumeric and Weblinx are partnered together for the city’s website. Their proposal stood out to Shearer due to their extensive experience with local government and a long-term plan for support and training.

Councilman Troy Douthett said he would like to see the city maintain close involvement with the contractors. Shearer replied that the production timeline, which was significantly longer than the other finalists, would give the city opportunities to course-correct.

The proposal from Neumeric and Weblinx was the most expensive of the five finalists, but is an all-in-one price with no expected plug-in or hosting fees.

“Although the up-front cost is slightly higher than the overall average of the finalists, the pricing is fixed and includes everything from design, development, migration, training and support,” Shearer said.

According to the city’s request for proposals for the website, a number of features were listed as a requirement.

One of the city’s biggest priorities when deciding on features was to implement payment processing on the site. This will allow residents to make payments for parking permits, parking fines and shelter rentals.

Another was to allow residents to complete and submit forms on the website. Completed forms will be automatically routed to the appropriate department. Shearer said this feature will benefit landlords submitting forms under the city’s new rental ordinance.

Some features requested by the city, such as livestreaming support for council meetings, intuitive menus and search function, mobile device support, Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and multilingual support are in the spirit of improving residents’ accessibility.

Tools for community engagement were also requested by the city. On the new website, residents will be able to send in public feedback forms, register for events through a calendar and sign up for email or SMS notifications.

The city’s goal is for the new website to be operational by the end of the year.