Winston Salem placed third in the he 2012 Digital Cities Survey published by the Center for Digital Government. This is the eleventh year Winston-Salem has made the list.  The Center for Digital Government is a national research and advisory institute that helps cities and municipalities use information technology to improve services and gain efficiencies.

Dennis Newman, chief information officer for the city, says despite tough times and budget constraints, the city has improved its services to the community.

“Today we do much of our purchasing and much of our payments electronically, and we have cut almost in half the number of physical computer servers we operate on. As a result we have lower operation costs and have met our green objective, reducing our use of electricity by almost a third,” says Newman.

The high ranking also takes into account technology upgrades to City Link 311 services. Residents can now ask questions and communicate with staff in various departments through the city’s homepage by electronic form or via chat. Newman says the survey results reflect the city’s business friendly attitude.

“Business or corporations interested in coming to Winston-Salem want to know that their employees have a community that the local government is providing services and effectively using their tax dollars. Information technology is one of those areas that makes a difference and this survey is one way of measuring how well we are doing,” says Newman.

The survey assesses U.S. cities in 4 size-based categories.  Winston-Salem was surveyed among cities with 125,000 to 249,999 residents.