NEBRASKA INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COMMISSION

Wednesday, November 10, 2004, 1:00 pm
Nebraska Educational Television
1800 North 33rd Street, Lincoln, Nebraska
APPROVED MINUTES

MEMBERS PRESENT:
Lieutenant Governor Dave Heineman, Chair
Linda Aerni, Chief Executive Officer, Community Internet Systems
Dr. Eric Brown, Manager, KRVN Radio
L. Merill Bryan, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Union Pacific
Dr. Doug Christensen, Commissioner, Nebraska Department of Education
Susan C. Heider, Chief Information Officer, Regional West Medical Center
Trev Peterson, Attorney, Knudsen, Berkheimer, Richardson, and Endacott, LLP
Dr. Dennis Smith, University of Nebraska

MEMBERS ABSENT:
Greg Adams, Mayor, City of York

CALL TO ORDER, ROLL CALL AND MEETING NOTICE

Lieutenant Governor Heineman called the meeting to order at 1:00 p.m. There were seven members present at the time of roll call. A quorum existed to conduct official business. It was stated that the meeting notice was posted to the NITC Web site on Monday, October 4, 2004 and on the Public Calendar Web site on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. The meeting agenda was posted to the NITC and Public Meeting Calendar Web sites on Wednesday, November 3, 2004.

APPROVAL OF SEPTEMBER MINUTES

Commissioner Peterson moved to approve the September 9, 2004 minutes as presented. Commissioner Smith seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Aerni-Yes, Bryan-Yes, Christensen-Yes, Heider-Yes, Heineman-Yes, Peterson-Yes, and Smith-Yes. Results: 7-Yes, 0-No. The motion was carried by unanimous vote.

PUBLIC COMMENT

There were no comments from the public.

Lieutenant Governor Heineman informed the Commissioners that the March, November and June 2005 meeting dates have not been determined. Staff will be in contact regarding more proposed dates. The September meeting date has been set for Friday, September 16, 2005 at which time there will be a joint meeting with the Education Council.

Commissioner Brown arrived at 1:07 p.m.

NITC PRIORITIZATION OF FY 2005-07 IT BUDGET REQUESTS (PDF 3MB)

Lieutenant Governor Heineman referred to the lists of projects as ranked by the Education Council and State Government Council. He explained that the ranking by the State Government Council is based on the technical reviews, only, and was not necessarily reflective of the state's priorities or goals. Lieutenant Governor Heineman also discussed the current budget picture. Although there has been an increase in the state's revenue, much of this will be consumed by state aid to education, special education, Medicaid, without any additional funds for, University of Nebraska requests, salary requests, other agency needs and budget deficit requests.Despite the improvement in revenues, the state is still facing a very tight budget, and the NITC should take that into consideration as it develops it recommendations to the Governor and Legislature.

Agency representatives were present for questions and/or comments regarding their IT budget requests.

Supreme Court: Frank Goodroe, State Court Administrator

JUSTICE is an automated computer system funded annually through cash funds at approximately $3 million. The system is in all district and county courts with the exception of Douglas County District Court. The JUSTICE system is not presently used in any of the three separate juvenile courts. Juvenile cases are currently heard in the county courts, except where there is a separate juvenile court. All three IT budget request projects are related to the JUSTICE system. Project #05-02 Acquire Juvenile Case Management System is the highest priority for the Supreme Court. There is no automated juvenile case management system in place. Currently, all juvenile records dealing with delinquency, abuse and neglect, and placement are on paper format. Juvenile cases involve the whole family and JUSTICE cannot handle this type of case. JUSTICE can handle criminal cases because they deal with an individual and a single event. Non-criminal juvenile cases typically involve many individuals, cover multiple events, and may be active for many years. Two consultants have looked at JUSTICE to see if it will work for Juvenile courts and both have indicated it will not work with juvenile cases. If the court wanted to develop an interface for JUSTICE to revise the system to work with children and families, it would take at least three years and $3 million. Questions arose regarding the following: can we use federal government software that is already in place for federal courts versus spending dollars to develop our own system; has research been done to determine what other states are doing with juvenile cases; is JUSTICE an adequate system; and, are we creating systems that don't communicate with each other? Commissioner Bryan suggested that project #05-03 Trial Court Automation Strategy should be funded so that both the JUSTICE and Juvenile court system could be evaluated and analyzed for recommendations and/or possible solutions.

Workers Compensation Court: Glen Morton, Administrator
The Workers Compensation Court’s budget is separate from the Supreme Court’s budget. Workers Compensation Court has more regulatory requirements than the criminal and civil court systems. All three projects are related to a re-engineering process to become paperless. In order to do electronic filings, the court must first have internal electronic files. Mr. Morton entertained questions.

Health and Human Services Systems: Jim McGee, Administrative Services, Information Systems & Technology
Seven of the nine projects are continuation projects. Projects such as CHARTS, NFOCUS, and MMIS scored low but are vitally important to Nebraska families. Monies for these projects are for continuing ongoing maintenance and support. Some of the funding may go to new projects which are enhancements to the existing system. The federal government continually issues new mandates that the agency must incorporate into its computer systems. The request for funding to replace MMIS is a different situation. MMIS is based on older technology that is expensive to modify. HHSS knows this, because of changes made for Y2K and HIPAA compliance. HHSS is facing major modifications in the future to meet additional federal requirements. In the long run, HHSS believes that it will be more cost effective to replace MMIS than to patch it again.In order to submit an IT budget request on time for the biennium, the agency had to make an educated guess regarding the budget needed to implement a new system. The State of Nebraska will be spending more dollars on Medicaid than any other program in the state. The agency just completed an evaluation of different options for MMIS. The results are still being reviewed. Mr. McGee entertained questions.

Department of Roads: Jon Ogden, Information Systems
Of the agency’s four highly scored IT budget requests, one is for a new project and the others are continuation projects. The new project is called the PioneerNET, which will be the software package for managing the various components that provide functionality to each of the District Operation Centers (DOC). The system will include video servers, software servers, databases, and archive management servers located in each District. It will assist in managing and monitoring the freeway system for motorists. Mr. Ogden entertained questions.

Nebraska Department of Education: Mike Kozak, Technology Planning/Internal Infrastructure Facilitator

The Distance Learning—Infrastructure, Programming and Training Project intends to capitalize on the three strategic initiatives of the NITC in order to improve the access, content and training opportunities of distance learning to address the essential education expectations for all Nebraska schools: Network Nebraska, Statewide Synchronous Video Network, and the Nebraska eLearning Initiative. About 1/3 of Nebraska schools will not have distance learning abilities if this project is not moved forward. If general funds are not available, alternative funding must be explored. It was recommended to include a comment regarding the use of non-general funds such as a re-direction of lottery monies. Mr. Kozak entertained questions.

University of Nebraska: Walter Weir, Chief Information Officer
Funding is being requested for a University Enterprise Server Upgrade for the University’s financial and student information systems.Mr. Weir entertained questions.

Chief Information Officer: Steve Schafer, CIO, State of Nebraska
Previously, the first two state government security audits and the security assessment for 2005 have been funded through grant dollars. Because grant funds should focus on one-time projects rather than on-going programs, Mr. Schafer requested funding for security audits in his operating budget.The budget for security audits would be funded through the cash fund. Mr. Schafer entertained questions.

After discussing what kind type of prioritized list to forward, it was decided to have a Tier I and Tier II list.

Commissioner Smith moved to designate the following 5 projects for Tier I. Commissioner Brown seconded the motion. Discussion followed.

• #13-01 Distance Learning-Infrastructure, Programming, and Training from the Nebraska Department of Education
• #51-01 University Enterprise Server Upgrade from the University of Nebraska
• #27-06 PioneerNET from the Department of Roads
• #05-03 Trial Court Automation Strategy from the Supreme Court
• #65-01 Security Audit from the Department of Administrative Services Chief Information Officer

Commissioner Aerni moved to amend the motion to omit the Supreme Court 05-03 project until more information is received. Commissioner Christensen seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Smith-No, Peterson-No, Heineman-Yes, Heider-No, Christensen-Yes, Bryan-No, Brown-No, and Aerni-Yes. Results: 3-Yes, 5-No. The motion failed.

Roll call vote on the original motion: Heider-Yes, Christensen-Yes, Bryan-Yes, Brown-Yes, Aerni-Yes, Smith-Yes, Peterson-Yes, and Heineman-Yes. Results: 8-Yes, 0-No. The motion was carried by unanimous vote.

Commissioner Bryan moved to designate the following three IT budget requests for Tier II. Commissioner Brown seconded the motion. Discussion followed.

• #05-01 Install Personal Computers for Courts from the Supreme Court
• #37-02 Court Re-engineering-Coverage and Claims from the Worker Compensation Court
• #27-07 Project Scheduling & Program Management System from the Department of Roads

Commissioner Brown moved to amend the motion to include #37-01 Court Re-engineering-Vocational Rehabilitation from the Workers Compensation Court. Commissioner Aerni seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Heineman-Yes, Peterson-Yes, Smith-Yes, Aerni-Yes, Brown-Yes, Bryan-Yes, Christensen-Yes, and Heider-Yes. Results: 8-Yes, 0-No. The motion was carried by unanimous vote.

Roll call vote on the original motion as amended: Aerni-Yes, Smith-Yes, Brown-Yes, Peterson-Yes, Bryan-Yes, Heineman-Yes, Christensen-Yes, and Heieder-Yes. Results: 8-Yes, 0-No. The motion was carried by unanimous vote.

Discussion followed regarding the remaining project proposals. It was suggested to group all continuation projects in one group (with exception of the highly scored HHSS 25-09 Network Technology Renewal Plan) and give agencies an opportunity to resubmit their request with additional information, address inoperability as well as the benefit to Nebraska’s citizens.

Commissioner Smith moved to group continuation projects together, for agencies to re-submit additional information at their discretion, prior to the NITC making a recommendation for the budget process. Commissioner Christensen seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Aerni-Yes, Brown-Yes, Bryan-Yes, Christensen-Yes, Heider-Yes, Heineman-Yes, Peterson-Yes, and Smith-Yes. Results: 8-Yes, 0-No. The motion was carried by unanimous vote.

Questions and/or comments regarding the process included the following:

• Should continuation projects be prioritized? Instead of including them, the agency could provide an update on the project’s progress.
• Should projects for replacement of equipment be included?
• Should a minimum technical score rating be implemented? Only those projects that meet the minimum rating would be forwarded.
• None of the proposals indicated what other states were doing.
• Agencies also struggled with what and how much information to include in the proposal form.
• Should cash funded projects be in the same priority list as general fund projects?
• Should three classifications - ongoing projects, continuation projects, and new projects - be considered?
• What about the agencies that did not submit proposals?
• What is considered an IT project?
• It would be beneficial to determine what the state is actually spending on IT in order to make enterprise decisions.

At a future meeting, Lt. Governor Heineman suggested a briefing on the IT efforts of the Department of Administrative Services.Steve Schafer also offered to discuss the Enterprise Architecture for State Government, which would address some of the issues raised. Lt. Governor Heineman will discuss this further with Steve Schafer, Chief Information Officer, and Lori McClurg, Department of Administrative Services Director.

After discussion of the application and prioritization process, Mr. Schafer stated that the CIO’s office plans to lead an assessment, evaluation and examination of the forms and processes. Input will be solicited from the Commissioners, councils and technical reviewers.

Mr. Weir announced that the Department of Administrative Services-Division of Communications received the 2004 Team of the Year Award from the Nebraska State Government Chapter of the National Management Association for the Statewide Backbone Project. Photos of the team with the award were given to the Commissioners.

NITC BIENNIAL PROGRESS REPORT

Commission Christensen moved to approve the NITC Biennial Progress Report (PDF 255k) to the Governor and Legislature. Commissioner Peterson seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Heider-Yes, Christensen-Yes, Heineman-Yes, Bryan-Yes, Peterson-Yes, Brown-Yes, Smith-Yes, and Aerni-Yes. Results: 8-Yes, 0-No. The motion was carried by unanimous vote.

At a future meeting, Lt. Governor would like a discussion on the IT ratings that the State of Nebraska has received on several national surveys.

NITC STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Commissioner Brown moved to approve and endorse the revised NITC Strategic Initiatives (PDF 996k). Commissioner Peterson seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Brown-Yes, Peterson-Yes, Aerni-Yes, Heineman-Yes, Heider-Yes, Bryan-Yes, Smith-Yes, and Bryan-Yes. Results: 8-Yes, 0-No. Motion carried by unanimous vote.

PRESENTATION BY NETC (DATACASTING TECHNOLOGY)

Mike Beach, Assistant General Manager, Technology, Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Commission

Mr. Beach provided a demonstration of datacasting technology. Data is transmitted over the unused portion of the broadcast bandwidth allocated for NET's television transmitters. The hardware (an antenna and converter box) and software are relatively inexpensive Files can be accessed from a local drive or a server. The demonstration included video multimedia, Word documents, a PowerPoint presentation, and a pdf file. Digital rights are an issue. This type of broadcasting is available across the state. NET has been working on interfaces with some Nebraska schools. Mr. Beach entertained questions.

OTHER BUSINESS

There was no other business.

NEXT MEETING DATES AND TIMES, ADJOURNMENT AND TOUR OF THE NETC BUILDING

The next meeting dates will soon be determined. More proposed dates will be sent to Commissioners.

Commissioner Aerni moved to adjourn. Commissioner Christensen seconded the motion. All were in favor. The motion was carried by unanimous voice vote.

The meeting was adjourned 3:55 p.m. Members and guests were invited to stay after the meeting for a tour of the NETC building.

Meeting minutes were taken by Lori Lopez Urdiales and reviewed by the staff of the Office of the CIO/NITC.

Meeting Minutes