27 Oct Wisconsin state agencies commended for digital innovations
Madison, Wis.—Four Wisconsin state agencies received the Center for Digital Government’s 2005 Digital Government Achievement Award in recognition of their innovative use of Web sites and computer applications to enhance government operations and interactions.
The Center for Digital Government, based in Folsom, Cal., is a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government.
The following projects received awards:
In the government-to-government category, the Department of Transportation (DOT) was commended for the “Wisconsin Information System for Local Roads,” or WISLR, a comprehensive database on Wisconsin’s 100,000-mile local roadway network. The first database of its kind in the nation, WISLR provides information to authorized Web users that includes physical and administrative roadway inventory attributes, pavement condition and functional classification data for local roads and streets. Developed from a cooperative effort between WisDOT and municipal governments, WISLR helps state and local officials make informed decisions when it comes to preserving and enhancing the local road network.
In the category of government-to-business, the state Public Service Commission received an award for its electronic regulatory filing system. The system allows the public and energy stakeholders to submit and access documents on utility rate and construction cases at the PSC electronically. This has reduced the PSC’s paper usage by 35 to 40 percent, cut costs and increased staff productivity. Estimated savings from the project are exceeding overall costs by more than three times; creating a payback time for the project of less than four months.
In the government-to-citizen category, the Department of Commerce won for its website, WiFrontDoorHousing.org. WiFrontDoorHousing.org is a statewide web-based community service designed to better connect the providers of affordable housing and housing services to renters looking for affordable housing. By working with private property owners, WiFrontDoorHousing.org has added more than 40,000 private units of affordable housing to the statewide list. This increase has accounted for a 36% increase in the affordable inventory – a total of 111,000 units.
In the category of government-to-internal, the Department of Administration’s won for its Enterprise Information Technology Training system. This training system was developed to ensure that state and local governments had the ability to deliver the critical employee retraining necessary to maintaining productivity at a price they could afford.
To do this, the Department of Administration successfully leveraged the combined buying power of Wisconsin’s state and local governments to create two statewide training contracts. The new contracts vastly increased the amount of people eligible for training, and produced lower rates for all.