American City & County and the Public Technology Institute surveyed a broad base of subscribers to determine the state of IT among local governments across the nation. The response rate was healthy, with 68.2 percent coming from municipalities and 25.1 percent from counties. Given the ever-changing IT environment, we asked a series of questions about new trends, including cloud computing, app development, and mobile device ownership and use.

One welcome surprise were the results to the question regarding IT spending, especially considering the negative effects that lower revenues have had on local governments. More than 78 percent of the respondents said that their IT spending for the coming year would be either the same or up from the current year. In addition to being encouraging news to other local governments, the response indicates that most communities' spending may have already hit bottom. Of those who said that IT spending would be the same or higher, 3.5 percent said that their spending would be significantly higher, and 27.2 percent said that spending would be up. The fact that 18.8 percent claimed that their budgets would be down from the current year is evidence that not everyone has reached bottom.

Read the entire story from American City and County, our sister publication.