NEBRASKA INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COMMISSION

Tuesday, November 8, 2005, 1:30 p.m.
Videoconference Sites:
Executive Building-Videoconference Room 103, 521 South 14th Street, Lincoln, Nebraska
Kearney Public Library-Information Center, 2nd Floor, 2020 1st Avenue, Kearney, Nebraska
Regional West Medical Center, Monument Room, 4021 Avenue B, Scottsbluff, Nebraska

APPROVED MINUTES

MEMBERS PRESENT:

Lieutenant Governor Rick Sheehy, Chair (Lincoln Site)

Linda Aerni, Chief Executive Officer, Community Internet Systems (Lincoln Site)

Dr. Eric Brown, Manager, KRVN Radio (Kearney Site)

Dr. Doug Christensen, Nebraska Department of Education (Lincoln Site)
Senator Phil Erdman, Ex-officio (Scottsbluff Site)

Dr. Doug Kristensen, Chancellor, University of Nebraska-Kearney (Kearney Site)

Dr. Janie Park, President, Chadron State College (Lincoln Site)

Trev Peterson, Attorney, Knudsen, Berkheimer, Richardson, and Endacott, LLP (Lincoln Site)

MEMBERS ABSENT: Greg Adams, Mayor, City of York; and L. Merill Bryan, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Union Pacific (Retired)

CALL TO ORDER, ROLL CALL AND MEETING NOTICE

Lieutenant Governor Sheehy called the meeting to order at 1:30 p.m. There were seven voting members present at the time of roll call. A quorum existed to conduct official business. The meeting notice and agenda were posted to the NITC and the Public Calendar Web sites on Wednesday, November 2, 2005.

Dr. Janie Park (PDF 36K) was introduced and welcomed as a new NITC Commissioner.

APPROVAL OF SEPTEMBER 23, 2005 NITC MINUTES

Commissioner Christensen moved to approve the September 23, 2005 minutes as presented. Commissioner Peterson seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Aerni-Yes, Brown-Yes, Christensen-Yes, Kristensen-Yes, Park-Abstain, Sheehy-Yes, and Peterson-Yes. Results: 6-Yes, 1-Abstain, 0-No. The motion was carried.

PUBLIC COMMENT

There was no public comment.

INFORMATIONAL UPDATES

Statewide Technology Plan 2005-06 (PDF 405k). The approved Statewide Technology Plan Version 1.0 has been posted to the NITC Web site. The advisory groups will be developing action plan items pertaining to the eight initiatives approved by the NITC. Review and approval of action items will take place at the next NITC meeting.

NITC Briefing. A briefing on the NITC’s activities and future direction will be provided to the Transportation & Telecommunications and the Appropriations Legislative Committees on Friday, November 18, 2:30 p.m. in the State Capitol. Commissioners were invited to attend.

LR 105 - Interim study. The purpose of this interim study is to examine rural economic development programs available to Nebraska residents and to recommend the most effective way to deliver these programs across the state. The NITC has been contacted about possibly providing information for this study.

NITC - Directive for restoration timeline and priority. At the September meeting, the NITC directed the State Government Council to evaluate and consider what IT systems should be restored and in what order, what level of outage, and what would be acceptable. The meeting has been scheduled for Monday, November 21st, 3:30 p.m. The group will forward a recommendation to the NITC. In turn, the NITC will make a recommendation to the Homeland Security group.

Nebraska Fusion ’05 E-government Conference, November 15, 2005. Commissioners were invited to the upcoming seventh annual e-government conference to be held at the Embassy Suites. Various levels of government will share ideas and best practices. There will be three tracks available with various breakout sessions: Enterprise Network, Business Continuity and Security, and Business Technology Showcase.

LB 645 Broadband Task Force. The Task Force has met twice. At the first meeting, Lieutenant Governor Sheehy was elected to serve as Chair. At the second meeting, discussions focused on the facilitator job description and the hiring process. Commissioner Kristensen also assisted with the job description. The state’s RFP process will be utilized.

Legislation: Information Technology Services. When Governor Heineman appointed Brenda Decker as new CIO, his charge to her was to bring the operational and policy IT divisions together as one cohesive organization. These divisions included Information Management Services, the Communications and the Office of the Chief Information Officer. This will take legislation for the change to be recognized in law. Currently, legislation is being developed to be introduced for this legislative session.

LB689 Distance Education Enhancement Task Force. The Task Force has met five times with one more meeting left in December. For the balance of November, staff will be drafting a report of the task force’s recommendations. Some of the suggestions include: the CIO to oversee the purchasing process; matching funds for equipment upgrades; incentive payments for school to receive synchronous and asynchronous classes; state aid provisions to offset costs; establishing a distance education council; and possible purchase of statewide scheduling system. Commissioner Brown has served on the task force and stated that the biggest question he had was been funding and timelines. He stated that he hoped a draft of the recommendations document would be available before the December 7th meeting. Tammy Barry, from Senator Raikes Office, confirmed that the document will go out to task force members one week prior to the meeting.

Commissioners commented on the similarities between LR105, LB 645 and LB 689, and the need for coordination and collaboration.

Center for Health Transformation-Connectivity Conference: Accelerating Transformation through Health, October 18, 2005. Lieutenant Governor Sheehy informed the commission that he served on a panel along with other Nebraska representatives to discuss and share Nebraska’s success stories in telehealth and electronic medical health records.

REPORTS AND ACTION ITEMS - COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Anne Byers, Community Information Technology Manager

Membership. At the October 24th meeting, the Community Council approved the nomination of Linda Fettig, Executive Director of Rural Development Commission, to serve as a new council member representing Rural and IT Development.

Commissioner Peterson moved to approve the Community Council’s nomination of Linda Fettig (PDF 8k) as a new member. Commissioner Aerni seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Aerni-Yes, Brown-Yes, Christensen-Yes, Kristensen-Yes, Park-Yes, Sheehy-Yes, and Peterson-Yes. Results: 7-Yes, 0-No. The motion was carried.

Recommendation and Approval: Technology Innovation Grants for Economic Revitalization (TIGER)*. A total of eleven applications were received. The projects have gone through a technical and project review. At the October 24th meeting, the Community Council recommended fully funding the top five applicants: Expanding Technology Horizons, Hartington Public Library; Hometown Competitiveness: Entrepreneurial Training, Atkinson Public Library; Computer Course Development, Wayne Public Library; IT Businesses: Assessment, Marketing, Recruitment, City of Aurora; and Oakland Business Portal, UNL Extension in Burt County. In addition, the council recommended partially funding the Kearney Visitors Bureau project Implementation of InfoTrac Software, if the Kearney Visitor’s Bureau was able to proceed with only partial funding. If they were not willing to negotiate, the council recommended funding the next project which was IT Training Modules for EDGE Program from the Nemaha County Development Alliance. The Kearney Visitor’s Bureau was unable to complete the project with partial funding. Discussion followed.

Commissioner Peterson moved to fund the top five projects for the TIGER (Technology Innovation Grants for Economic Development) grants. Commissioner Aerni seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Peterson-Yes, Sheehy-Yes, Park-Yes, Kristensen-Yes, Christensen-Yes, Brown-Yes, and Aerni-Yes. Results: 7-Yes, 0-No. The motion was carried.

I.T. Planning and Mini Grant Program Update (PDF 52k). A written document was distributed to commissioner prior to the meeting. Projects have included a community wide eBay project, business incubators, local government web site development, wireless broadband, and computer training. Lessons learned include:

• Local technology development is hard work.
• Most households have computers and Internet access. Relatively few households subscribe to broadband, however.
• There is demand for basic computer training.
• There is growing demand for online community and local government information and services.
• Most businesses have computers and have broadband access.
• Many businesses have a Web presence and are experiencing benefits from the Internet.

REPORTS AND ACTION ITEMS - EDUCATION COUNCIL
Tom Rolfes, Education Information Technology Manager

The Education Council has not met since the August 9 Joint Meeting of the NITC Advisory Groups. The next meeting will be held on November 18th to develop action items. Mr. Rolfes gave a special recognition to Alan Wibbels for his service on the Education Council since its inception. Mr. Wibbels has announced his retirement from ESU 10 and will be moving to Florida. A written statement of Mr. Wibbels contributions and service was shared.

REPORTS AND ACTION ITEMS – STATE GOVERNMENT COUNCIL
Rick Becker, Government Information Technology Manager

The council will meet on Thursday, November 10th, to develop action items. The State of Nebraska recently unveiled a new site. Nebraska received the Best of the Web award from the Center for Digital Government.

REPORTS AND ACTION ITEMS – TECHNICAL PANEL
Walter Weir, Chair

Mr. Weir acknowledged and thanked Mr. Wibbels for his involvement and commitment to Network Nebraska. The following two deficit requests were reviewed by the Technical Panel.

Egrant System Re-Write, Nebraska Arts Council: Members discussed the project and reviewer comments. Discussion followed regarding the NITC’s role in reviewing deficit requests and prioritizing projects. According to statute, the deficit cycle does not require that the NITC prioritize funding requests. Only a technical review is required by the NITC for deficit request.

Commissioner Christensen moved to forward the project but to indicate that no program review has been conducted. Commissioner Christensen made a second motion that the minutes reflect that if the project had to be rated, it would not have been ranked in either Tier I or Tier II. There was no second to either motion.

Mr. Henderson suggested two options:

• Append comments from the NITC to the project technical review
• Include the NITC comments in a cover letter attached to the project technical review

It was decided by group consensus to include a cover letter with the NITC’s comments with the deficit project request.

Statewide K-12 Technology Infrastructure Upgrade to Flexible Use IP-based Network, Department of Education: Contracts for many of the schools are expiring in 2006. The project scored 90 out of 100 in the technical review. The Technical Panel found that the project was technically feasible; the proposed technology was appropriate; and that the technical elements can be accomplished within the proposed time frame and budget. Discussion followed regarding the LB 689 task force recommendations. Dr. Christensen stated that it will defer the request pending the outcome of LB 689. It was by group consensus to include a cover letter with the NITC’s comments with the deficit project request.

NEW BUSINESS

Upcoming Terms of NITC Commissioners (PDF 21k): The following commissioner’s terms will be expiring in April 2006 – Greg Adams, Eric Brown, Doug Christensen, and Merill Bryan. Commissioners were asked to forward recommendations to the Lieutenant Governor or Brenda Decker.

NEXT MEETING AND ADJOURNMENT

The next meeting of the Nebraska Information Technology Commission will be scheduled in late January.

Commissioner Brown moved to adjourn. Commissioner Park seconded. All were in favor. Motion was carried.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:50 p.m.

Meeting Minutes