Center for Digital Government 2009 Best of New York Award Winners

September 24, 2009

Agency Award for Technology-driven Business Transformation

Juvenile Justice Information System (JJIS) Workgroup
NYS Office of Children and Family Services

The Juvenile Justice Information System (JJIS) Workgroup is a 50-member team of program, IT, and other agency stakeholders who meet weekly to make decisions regarding development, business process re-engineering, and implementation of this system of record for case management of juvenile justice youth placed by the courts. JJIS provides automated court appearance scheduling, facility admissions, absences, release planning, discharges, and other vital data for the centralized bank of information. Results include fewer missed court dates, more timely hearings, no youths "falling through the cracks", 75 percent of the admissions and youth movements entered into the system within two days - up from more than a week; all of these improvements allowing staff increased time to work with youth.

Agency Award for Technology-driven Business Transformation

e-MPIRE Project (e-Managed Processes for an Integrated Revenue Enterprise)
NYS Department of Taxation and Finance

The e-MPIRE Project, involving hundreds of people and all organizations of the Department of Taxation and Finance, was a complete modernization of the tax processing systems. The e-MPIRE solution, based on service-oriented architecture (SOA) concepts, leverages of many legacy services in new ways, and is a blue-print for future development including virtualization and cloud technologies. The result of literally hundreds of user enhancements and operational efficiencies is faster delivery of refunds to taxpayers, 60 % improvement in the turnaround of exceptions and a more than 100% increase in tax processing capacity from the previous systems. Through this system over 10 million personal income tax forms were processed with a peak of 390,000 per day.

Excellence in Project Management:

Nancy E. Trefzger, PMP, Director of eDMV
NYS Department of Motor Vehicles

A certified project manager with over 13 years experience in both the public and private sector, Nancy Trefzger has been managing projects for DMV since 2006, and is also director of eDMV. Her management and oversight of multiple key projects, such as the ePlead suite of transactions, which have risen to be three of the top five DMV transactions for self-service, has helped to build a new channel of services for DMV customers and formally integrate both project management and business analysis practices at DMV. An advocate for agency-wide adoption of PM best practices, Nancy's demonstrative lead-by-example approach has contributed to the establishment of DMV's new capability in online government service.

IT Governance Award

Enterprise Governance Structure
NYS Office of the State Comptroller

Strategic business alignment and attaining the greatest value from IT investments are the principals guiding the Office of the State Comptroller's IT Governance organizations. The Enterprise Governance Committee, or EGC, comprised primarily of the executive leadership of operating divisions, ensures a direct connection between the agency's business strategy and the IT strategy. Working as a team, the EGC identified specific enterprise solutions that meet the business objectives of all divisions. Examples include: authorizing a single identity and access management solution for online services, and the recent Open Book New York initiative in which the IT governance process openly and collaboratively managed the reprioritization of ongoing initiatives, reset expectations among IT customers, and re-allocated both business and IT resources.

Excellence in IT Operations, Support and Service

Bryan F. Dott, IT Specialist 4
NYS Division of Parole

Constantly looking for ways to improve the Division of Parole's case management system and data quality, during the past few years, Bryan Dott has initiated efforts and been instrumental in moving the agency from being paper-based; drastically reducing hardcopy report printing by 100,000+ pages monthly and with a savings of over $100,000 annually. The savings will be realized also in the number of Parole staff that will be freed up from processing the huge monthly printing volume and now can be reassigned to perform other needed tasks.

Project Best Advancing Service to the Public:

Commission for Blind & Visually Handicapped - Consumer Information System
NYS Office of Children and Family Services

With the implementation of the Consumer Information System or CIS, all operations of the Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped have been streamlined into an enterprise-wide, fully-accessible system which serves 9,500 individuals and 550 users. The entirely paperless system allows real-time processing of applications (rather than a two-week wait), at-a-glance status for counselors, electronic review of case loads by supervisors (rather than traveling to regional offices) and connects to field staff wirelessly and in real time. These improvements allow staff more time to devote to service provision for the blind and visually handicapped New Yorkers and their families.

Project Best Advancing Service to the Public:

ELMS (Eligible List Management System) Online
NYS Department of Civil Service

The Eligible List Management System, ELMS Online, replaced three resource-intensive systems (including walk-up terminals and paper-based systems) with one Web-based application that provides up-to-date information to the user at the desktop. Over 225,000 individuals who have taken and passed any of the 2,000 New York State Civil Service exams (including promotional) can log in and view their scores and ranks. The general public can also access information concerning the state of eligible lists, what positions are filled from which lists, and from what titles. Additional information, such as the size of a list and its expiration date, can help members of the general population make career plans in their area of expertise.

Project Best Advancing Service to the Public:

HESC Student Loan Marketplace
Higher Education Services Corporation

In response to the New York State Student Loan Accountability, Transparency and Enforcement (SLATE) Act, the Higher Education Services Corporation created the Student Loan Marketplace, a first-in-the-nation program that allows students to comparison-shop actual, pre-qualified private education loan terms between multiple lenders using a single credit check. Marketplace allows students and parents to compare actual loan products with real loan terms and select the best fit for their needs. Also, Marketplace provides schools with a program that they can confidently recommend to students, and a means for more easily conforming to the SLATE Act.

Project Best Advancing Service to the Public:

311 Online: New Customer Service Web Portal
NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications

The new Web site 311 Online provides New York residents, business owners, and visitors with information and access to all 3,000 New York City government services; the same information and assistance individuals currently receive by calling 311. The site is part of Mayor Bloomberg's 311 vision to expand New Yorkers' access to government information and non-emergency services through an efficient online customer service channel. Services are listed under 10 broad categories for easy reference; also individuals can access a "Top Services" list, report a problem and request services which are tracked through closure, and even submit a video or picture file. Access to additional online resources is provided, including links to relevant federal and state agency services.

Project Demonstrating Best IT Collaboration Among Organizations

myBenefits
NYS Temporary and Disability Assistance

Launched in May, 2008, the myBenefits application represents proof of concept and is the first phase of New York State's interagency collaboration to streamline online public access to cross-agency government services. Low-income families can access benefits, services and work support services by answering one set of questions online. As of June 2009, more than 185,000 users had completed pre-screenings (an 86% completion rate). The Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance is working with the 211 organizations involved to provide additional eligibility tools and interfaces, and also with the NYS Library Association to provide user training.

Project Demonstrating Best IT Collaboration Among Organizations

DCJS Crime Analysis Centers Champion Data Sharing
NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services

The N.Y. Crime Analysis Centers, a state and local government collaborative project, conducts in-depth analysis of all information related to local crime in a particular county, using newly-connected and shared data, which allows better-informed, vital decisions about strategic planning, tactical deployment and crime investigation. The 87 crime analysts state-wide can now determine connections among people, events, places, gangs, methods of operation and objects (cars, license plates, addresses) in a Google-like search environment from literally dozens of sources and plot their relationships automatically. National sources of data are included, such as from the FBI Most Wanted, Interpol International Fugitives and several dozen other public sources. Many dozens of IT professionals and their organizations throughout New York have assisted in this project.

Project Demonstrating Best IT Collaboration Among Organizations

Enhanced Drivers License
NYS Department of Motor Vehicles

The Enhanced Drivers License project resulted in New York State issuing a new limited-use international travel, multi-purpose driver's license to assist over 134,000 NYS residents crossing the US/Canadian border. The overall project involved more than 20 teams and 100 associates, including many divisions within DMV, the US Department of Homeland Security, several state agencies, and County Clerk partners, and was completed in less than a year. Various new technologies were employed including document authentication equipment, RFID tags in licenses, conversion of the license file to a relational data model, data exchange connections with the federal government and establishment of a secure document proof repository.

Project Demonstrating Best IT Collaboration Among Organizations

New York State Immunization Registry Systems (NYSIIS)
NYS Department of Health and NYS CIO and Office for Technology

The New York State Immunization Registry (NYSIIS) is a newly-integrated and centralized Web-based technology solution replacing three legacy systems, "Healthy Shot", "IRIS" and the "HUB", which provides NYS children centralized immunization tracking and monitoring services. Through the collaborative efforts of both New York State's Department of Health and the CIO/ Office for Technology project teams, health care providers and schools can view an individual's vaccine history, with the goal of reducing vaccine-preventable disease and preventing duplicate vaccinations. The Web-based application was designed with 3-Tier architectural structure, is protected by authentication and uses available shareware for effective cost-control.

Project Demonstrating Most Innovative Use of Technology:

Road Status/Damage Assessment Tool
NYS Department of Transportation

The Road Status/Damage Assessment (RSDA) system is a map-based field application and centralized database developed to assist field personnel in the collection of transportation infrastructure conditions and provide analysis and reporting to the regional and state Emergency Operations Centers. The application leverages GIS technology to provide an intuitive map-based interface to store and depict current road status and collect locations of highway system damage. The application has the capability to work offline where there is no internet connectivity and then transmit data to the main office, which greatly improves reporting speed. Tested in the ice storm December 2008, the RSDA uploaded almost 100 damage assessments and road status updates for every public road in Columbia County.

Project Demonstrating Most Innovative Use of Technology:

CareerZone: Career Exploration for Youth
NYS Department of Labor

CareerZone uses the latest in java and multimedia technologies to deliver carer exploration services to young people. In a presentation style that fits a youth culture, CareerZone provides self-administered skill assessments, matching of skills with potential jobs, exploration of careers for which there might have been little awareness, and provides special focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers Used throughout NYS school systems and individually by young people on the Web, the application contains a youth profile which allows tracking of education, skill development, and jobs, and supports resume writing and career shaping.

Project Demonstrating Most Innovative Use of Technology:

NYS Digital Forensics Workgroup: Open Source Innovation

To provide better collection and preservation of incident-related data using new technologies, and to leverage existing expertise via train-the-trainer and knowledge share, the New York State Digital Forensics Workgroup was established. This multi-agency "community of practice" with members from several agencies, collaboratively explored the use of open source forensic tools for incident response, delivered the results at an interactive conference session, and now provides follow-up training for members; helping to ensure that sound forensic investigation practices are followed. Team members also developed a step-by-step guide on how to build a forensic workstation using open source tools. The group conducted rigorous testing with new and known technologies to ensure the accuracy of results.

Project Demonstrating Most Innovative Use of Technology:

Westchester County Optimal Routing Application (ORA)

Developed entirely in-house using innovative and cost-effective open source technology, Westchester County's Optimal Routing Application (ORA), is a Web-based Intranet application that provides county users with "optimal" driving routes as part of daily inspection and operational programs. The application was developed using cutting-edge Web technologies and the County's geocoding Web services to improve performance and geocoding accuracy. ORA is currently being used by several county agencies, is seamlessly integrated with the County's fleet management application ("FleetAnywhere") and can be easily integrated with other County applications. ORA also gives users the capability to email, print or alter the route directions.