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Madison commissioners hear update on communications program; website ADA compliance and crisis plan still pending
Summary
City staff reported that the 2024 communications project list is largely complete, cited early metrics for a new mobile app and website, and said a crisis communications plan and ADA website fixes remain to be done before an April 2027 federal compliance deadline.
Savannah, a city staff member in charge of communications, told the Madison City Commission that the city completed most items on its 2024 communications project list but still needs two major deliverables: a crisis communications plan and further accessibility (ADA) fixes for the city website ahead of an April 2027 compliance deadline.
Savannah said the 2024 major project list “everything but 2 items was completed by the end of the year or very early in 2025,” and outlined several performance measures and new initiatives launched last year.
That progress, Savannah said, included launching a mobile app with “over 300 downloads,” website optimizations that produced a 26% increase in site views, a pilot of text and email alerts, and internal employee communications tools such as an employee portal and quarterly “employee connect” sessions. She said the city will run awareness campaigns in 2025 to boost subscriptions to topic-based alerts and use the refreshed website to drive more traffic to the mobile app.
Savannah noted the city has deployed text-message alerts and email notices but added a caveat about subscriber counts: “there's over 200 subscribers. 1,300 of those were already public works and utilities subscribers because they were already using the text messaging service,” a point she offered while describing how the preexisting public-works list affected the rollout metrics.
Staff also described internal engagement work: an employee communications survey done in January informed next steps and showed staff preference for text messaging for operational notices. Savannah said the team has begun a website redesign in partnership with CivicPlus; the redesign is expected to take several months and staff are expanding analytics tracking to include the community center, library and SportsPlex sites.
Commissioners and other meeting participants praised staff work during the discussion. One commissioner said the 2024 plan had been “ambitious” but showed many green check marks; another urged that the city continue promoting the new app so residents know where to find services and agendas. Savannah closed by listing next steps: developing the crisis communications plan, preparing for a 2026 public communication survey, and pursuing concrete ADA compliance solutions for the website.
The commission had no formal vote tied to the presentation. Staff invited ideas from commissioners and said they will continue outreach and awareness work in 2025.
