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GCN Home > June 2001 issue

THE 50 STATES

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ALABAMA
SMART COPS. The Public Safety Department is combining a dispatch records management system and mobile computing software from SmartCop Inc. of Pensacola, Fla., to link state highway patrol units, police departments and county sheriff’s offices wirelessly. Officers use wireless data transmission to run record checks and retrieve incident reports at their vehicles.

ALASKA
E-MAIL ALERTS. The Emergency Services Division won an award for “Best State Disaster Internet Message Providers” from the Disaster Center, a research group based in Anchorage. Directed by network administrator Bryan Fisher, the site, at www.akak-prepared.com, was lauded for providing daily disaster situation reports by e-mail to interested citizens.

ARIZONA
PAPER JAM. Paper was a problem for Tempe. Officials tried to store the city’s million paper records in an off-site storage facility, but that proved cumbersome, city officials said. Eight departments, including the Tempe police and fire departments, adopted eB document management software from Altris Software Inc. of San Diego to convert the paper records into an electronic format. The eB suite works with Microsoft Corp. products, including Windows 9x/2000/NT, Transaction Server and Message Queue Server.

ARKANSAS
NOW ON DVD. Arkansas is working with ImageEntry Inc. of London, Ky., to convert state income and sales and use tax returns into digital images. The company stores these returns electronically on CD and DVD at its new facility in Brinkley. Since the state adopted the system, Tax Department officials say they resolve taxpayer problems in minutes instead of days.

COLORADO
CITYVIEW SUITE. Municipal Software Corp. of Vancouver, British Columbia, won contracts with the city and county of Denver valued at $726,500. The company will provide Denver’s Building Permit Center and Wastewater Management Department with its CityView software, which tracks permits and property assessment data.


 CALIFORNIA
NINE ONLINE. Gov. Gray Davis announced that nine California nonprofit organizations and schools will share a total of $6.8 million in state and federal grants for rural electronic commerce. Davis said the grants will increase Internet connectivity for farms, small businesses and community centers.

CONNECTICUT
LITERARY ICON. The state launched an online digital library in April. The Connecticut Digital Library, or iCONN, at www.iconn.org provides residents and businesses with access to 300 library collections. The state library system administers the online service in conjunction with the Higher Education Department.

DELAWARE
WEB TRAFFIC. The Motor Vehicles Department has a new Web site, at www.dmv.de.gov, where residents can find out about driver’s licenses, vehicle titling, license suspensions and revocations and vehicle inspections. The Cyberspace Service Center also provides traffic reports and access to the statewide traffic camera network with live visuals of the state’s most frequently used intersections.


 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
FINANCIAL SLAP. The city government produces financial management information through cumbersome, manual processes and the extraordinary efforts of a few key employees because its systems are incomplete, according to the congressional General Accounting Office.

GAO issued a report in April scolding district officials for failing to complete their financial management system.

The office said two components of the new core general ledger System of Accounting and Reporting have not been fully implemented. The personnel and payroll, procurement and tax systems that feed into SOAR are incomplete and lack electronic interfaces, GAO said. And, the report said, the city may abandon its $13 million personnel and payroll system altogether.

FLORIDA
MY TAXES. The Revenue Department unveiled its new online business tax filing services at www.myflorida.com/dor. The site is protected by Secure Sockets Layer encryption and requires a user identification and password.

Businesses and individuals now can use the site to complete an electronic version of a key form, the Application to Collect and/or Report Tax in Florida.

GEORGIA
LET’S MAKE A DEAL. The Technology Authority has requested proposals on behalf of the Teachers’ Retirement System for a new pension administration and accounting system. It will include optical imaging capabilities, workflow management tools and data conversion applications.

HAWAII
THEORY INTO ACTION. The Labor and Industrial Relations Department awarded a $1.3 million contract to AppliedTheory Corp. of New York. The company will install its One Stop Operating System software, which will help state employment agencies share information online and improve state compliance with the federal Workforce Investment Act of 1998.

What's up in your agency?
For governments east of the Mississippi, call 301-650-2225 or e-mail wdizard@postnewsweektech.com.
For those west, call 301-650-2238 or e-mail twalsh@postnewsweektech.com.


 IDAHO
JAILHOUSE HACK. The Correction Board found prison inmates had taken control of some of the state’s computer systems and diverted delivery of convict-manufactured furniture to their families and friends.

The board launched a management review of the Correctional Industries prison program, which manufactures office furniture for state agencies.

ILLINOIS
PALMS OF THEIR HANDS. Consolidated High School District 230 of Orland Park has equipped nearly 1,700 students and 65 teachers with handheld computers from Palm Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif. The students and teachers now can wirelessly print their assignments and other documents to infrared-equipped printers using the PrintBoy Deluxe utility from Bachmann Software and Services LLC of Sparta, N.J.

INDIANA
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT. The Commerce Department’s Energy Policy Division has posted information online about where residents and businesses can market their recyclable waste.

The Indiana Recyclable Materials Market Directory Online at www.IN.gov/doc/energy/commercerecycles/markets provides a directory of companies that buy recyclable materials.

IOWA
FORGET BERMUDA, VACATION HERE. The Economic Development Department’s Tourism Division sells advertisements on the Accommodations and Attractions pages of its Web site. It charges $600 for a six-month ad during the March-to-August high season and $400 during the September-to-February off-season. Ads can be updated once every three months. The division reports ad activity to each advertiser every six months. A recent visit to the site showed a handful of ads for hotel chains and Iowa cities, but much of the available ad space was vacant.

KANSAS
DEATH BECOMES IT. The Health and Environment Department will request proposals for new death registration software for the state’s Vital Statistics Integrated Information System. The system registers and tracks births, deaths, marriages and divorces.

Housed on an IBM AS/400 server, the system is long overdue for an upgrade, department officials said.


 KENTUCKY
DEADLY DELAY. The OxyContin Task Force, which was appointed by Gov. Paul Patton to help control abuse of the powerful prescription painkiller, likely will recommend improvements to a state system that tracks controlled substances.

OxyContin abuse has caused several overdose deaths, State Police Lt. Kevin Payne said. The Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting System (KASPER) tracks prescription drug distribution, but because it reports only after a 25- to 30-day lag, a person could obtain and fill multiple prescriptions from different doctors without attracting notice for a while. Upgrading KASPER so it would produce reports quickly would cost about $5 million annually, officials estimated.

LOUISIANA
E-RATE FUMBLE. Last December, the New Orleans school district applied for a $29 million grant from the Federal Communications Commission’s E-Rate program, which subsidizes school Internet programs. Last month, FCC officials rejected the grant request.

FCC said the district failed to show it has the proper Internet hardware or software and provided faulty budget information. Without the grant, the district’s plan to put five Web-connected PCs in every classroom is expected to fall apart.

MAINE
EASY MONEY. The Treasurer’s Office will initiate an automated management information system by July 1 that will let residents and businesses pay electronically for state goods and services. Maine has contracted with Peoples Heritage Bank of Portland for funds processing.
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