Problems/Making Suggestions to Superiors

I have to lead this post with a disclaimer, I think. I'm not offering this advice/explanation within the scope of my job, within a role as a consultant, or as someone who is offering to build a website (because real talk, who in their right mind would do web development?).

I did IT consulting work before JET, which included, among other things, helping clients manage websites (not building them, but occasionally advising on what they would need or how much they would cost).

Website costs are going to vary widely depending on the type of content they host and things they do. $6000 is on the very low end of a website -- for example, if you just wanted one of those fancy new webpages where you scroll down and they have all of 5 tabs of information, you're probably in the 5000-8000 range.

But here's my take on some of the complexity factors you've outlined just in your post. If I'm off base here in terms of things I've assumed would be part of the site, please let me know.

1) Your website, if it is to be like AirBNB or Voyagin, is going to be handling payments. This means there will need to be additional security features (PCI Compliance in the US, additional secure coding web practices (things they should be doing anyway, but in Japan, probably aren't), etc.) This drives up the cost wildly. Now you're integrating a third party solution to accept payments, and the work of that easily doubles the base cost of the website after design, testing, etc. You've moved from informational page to ecommerce website, which is going to rapidly increase your rates.

2) Since your website is now processing payments, you have to have support abilities, and ideally more than just a crappy 'contact us' box that forwards to a mailbox nobody checks. Now you're integrating a support chat or ticketing system into your website.

3) Being a government agency is going to raise your costs again because of all the red tape associated with government work. I would say based on my experience working with government contractors in the states (iirc I'm actually NDA'd about specifics on this) that about 25% of my billable hours spent working anything for a government contractor were chasing down the right people to get me the right permission to do whatever the thing was I needed to do. Doubly so when you throw in Japanese bureaucracy (and requirements about where physically a site like this can be hosted, which I'm less familiar with in Japan). In the states, being a government agency can sometimes require hosting everything yourself, which can mean additional licensing costs for underlying software. I'm going to guess that for reasons your CO has also opted to contract locally, and in a market as small as the one near you, this may mean very limited options for bigger stuff.

4) Search Engine Optimization. This is some art and some science, but the gist of it is that many web developers offer to also increase a new pages rankings in Google or other search engines. This process is also lengthy and often even involves your website designer subcontracting to an SEO Consultant, which can be expensive (and those costs are passed on to you). But it's often necessary if you're in a competitive space.

Thinking of it in terms of labor can also help clarify why the rate is what it is. Once all of that is included, a 200万 ballpark doesn't seem out of control. Think about it in reverse -- 200万 is a very low-end contract rate for 2 developers working for about 2 months. The 5 grand websites are the ones that are usually built out of a box in a week or two by 1-2 people, but to have functionality described here there's a lot more stuff that needs to happen out of the box.



But I can't make any of these statements definitively without knowing exactly what was scoped. I can promise it won't be as functional as the scope claims (it almost never is) but remember that developers also need to live.

So from what it sounds like, is your BOE may possibly be open to suggestions then. If that is the case, I think there are a few things you can suggest that will give you some more work to do and also focus on the whole KOKUSAI KOURYU bit without becoming a glorified ALT. I am also a BOE CIR, although I split my time between different offices and work. I do various events with the 社会教育係 in the BOE which includes cultural lectures about my home country, holiday events, and cooking classes. The holiday events were something that the ALTs have done for some time, but I wrote a proposal for the cooking classes that I submitted to my supervisor who then took it to the upper management of the BOE. I also occasionally help the 社会教育係 with one of the senior circles that he's in charge of. 

If you are wanting more translation stuff to do, start with things that would be helpful for any foreign residents (if you have any in your town). The trash list is always a good place to start. 
If you see stuff going on that you think it would be good to be involved in, speak up and let your supervisor know. Since you are basically in a new position, I think your suggestions would go a long way to helping define what they should be having a CIR do. 

michiru

For my cooking classes, I set a precedent of having a 10-15 min culture lecture that set a theme for each cooking class. If that interests you, it may be something to suggest?
Even if they don't have the budget for translating the website until April, doesn't mean you can't go thru and find pages that you think would be good to have translated and start working on it during any down time. If you are looking for things to fill time, create a ppt presentation about yourself and your home country, or interesting cultural differences. Never hurts to have one of those handy, and then you can show it to your supervisor and be like "hey, I've been working on this, is there a way to have an event so I can meet more of the townspeople?"
Things like that will show that you really are interested in KOKUSAI KORYU-ing. Good luck!