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GCN Home > 08/13/07 issue

Visualize better government

Sidebar | Government reaches out through the Web

By Trudy Walsh

Two government Web sites — one federal, one state — are finding new ways to give users more of what they want from government: targeted information and quick service.

The Housing and Urban Development Department’s Enterprise Income Verification System helps 4,100 public housing agencies validate tenant-reported income, including wages, unemployment and Social Security benefits. Public housing relies on accurate reporting of tenants’ income. Underreporting household income can keep a family that truly needs housing assistance out of the system.

EIV is built right into the HUD.gov Web site, said Nicole Faison, director of HUD’s Office of Public Housing Programs. While visitors to HUD.gov are on the site, they can also fill out their EIV applications, Faison said.

“The big thing feds do well is getting information out to those who need it,” Faison said. “We’re here to serve our constituents, our customers. Granted, there may be customers who don’t know we exist, but we’re there for those who we know need it.”

EIV accesses and integrates data from other federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration and the Health and Human Services Department.

Some of the data that EIV culls comes from large systems that data back to the 1970s, said Tomas Vagoun, program manager of the federal civilian and intelligence division of ITS, a subsidiary of QinetiQ North America.

When Faison and her team first put up the Web site (GCN.com, Quickfind 826), they weren’t sure what information to include. “We ended up relying on information coming through our help desk,” she said. “So we were able to provide information that was most useful and didn’t overwhelm the Web pages with information that wasn’t helpful to the majority of the folks.”

Web 2.0 is an overused term, Vagoun said. But one of the valuable concepts that has come out of it is the goal of engaging the user in a dialogue.

Meanwhile, features of Web 2.0 were a key ingredient in remodeling the Pennsylvania attorney general’s Web site, www.attorneygeneral. gov, in September 2005.

Using CMS400.Net, a Web content management tool from Ektron, the office added blogging, more graphics, a news section and functions that users can tailor to their needs.

For example, parents can sign up to find out when a child predator is caught, said Dennis Guzy Jr., business integration group manager with the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office. The site sends out an e-mail notification instantly.

The office has tweaked the site based on feedback from constituents, Guzy said. The revamped site is now ranked No. 2 in Google when users type “attorney general.”

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