Bucks County Relies on CivicPlus® and its People to Create Positive Civic Experiences

Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is proud of its diversity. With rural farms in Upper Bucks, bucolic, historic locales in the central part of the county, and industry in the more densely-populated lower end, this collar county of Philadelphia offers something for everyone. Founded in 1682 as one of the original counties in the United States, Bucks has grown to a municipality that nearly 650,000 people call home. With so many residents reliant upon their municipality for news, information, resources, and support, Bucks County’s leaders rely just as heavily on trusted technology to help them create positive civic experiences at every touchpoint. Three core components of Bucks County’s software stack include CivicPlus’s website design and hosting software, its digital services and automations tool, and its parks and recreation management software.

Digitizing the Civic Experience in Bucks County

Before Bucks County migrated to the CivicEngage^® website design and hosting solution from CivicPlus, it leveraged a custom solution as its primary digital hub of information and digital services.

Replacing the aging official county website was one of the chief recommendations outlined by the Bucks County Transition Team. When the newly-elected commissioners took office in January 2020, they made it a top priority of their administration, engaging a task force with representation from multiple departments to find the best solution. Then the pandemic hit and an updated website was no longer a priority, it was a necessity. Shortly after, John Regula joined the team at Bucks County in the role of chief information officer, and he immediately accelerated the mission to modernize and enhance the aesthetics and functionality of the County’s website.

“Our goal was to create a positive digital experience for citizens,” said Regula. He added that in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an added emphasis on migrating many formerly manual processes and services online so that citizens could continue to do business with the County while its offices were closed and staff worked remotely.

“While we would always prefer to see our citizens’ faces, we want to make it easy for them to interact digitally with our departments,” Regula added.

To enhance its digital optimization goals, Bucks County incorporated CivicPlus’ digital services and automations solution to its software stack. As a result, it has converted six formerly paper-based citizen form request processes to digital. One such impactful use case is related to severe weather events.

“We’re able to leverage the tool to set up forms so that citizens can send us requests and inquiries related to recent weather events, such as tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes,” said Regula. “It’s helping us receive reports from the community more quickly.”

The Benefits of a Single, Trusted Technology Partner

The next digital enhancement for Bucks County will be to migrate to CivicPlus’ parks and recreation management solution. The migration will offer the County further benefits of working with a single solution provider.

“CivicPlus offers a common look and feel across solutions,” said Regula. “That consistency makes it easier for our users and us when interacting with the software.”

While technology integrations and modern interfaces are valuable, Regula says it’s the people at CivicPlus that make the difference.

“At CivicPlus, the software works, and the people work harder,” said Regula. “The people at CivicPlus know their customers. You can rely on them. Whatever your challenge is, they have seen it before and can leverage their knowledge to help you build a better solution.”