STATE GOVERNMENT COUNCIL
Thursday, June 14, 2007, 1:30 p.m.
Executive Building-Lower Level Conference Room
521 South 14th Street, Lincoln, NE 68508
MINUTES
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Bob Beecham, NDE Support Services
Dennis Burling, Department of Environmental Quality
Randy Cecrle, Workers’ Compensation Court
Tom Conroy, OCIO - Enterprise Computing Services
Josh Daws, Secretary of State’s Office
Brenda Decker, Chief Information Officer
Keith Dey, Department of Motor Vehicles
Pat Flanagan, Private Sector
Dick Gettemy, Department of Revenue
Jeanette Lee, Department of Banking
Bill Miller, Supreme Court
Jim Ohmberger, Health and Human Services
Gerry Olligmueller, Budget Office
Mike Overton, Crime Commission
Doni Peterson, Department of Administrative Services
Bob Shanahan, Department of Labor
Bill Wehling, Department of Roads
George Wells, Correctional Services
MEMBERS ABSENT: Mike Calvert, Legislative Fiscal Office; Jayne Scofield, OCIO - Network Services; Rex Gittins, Department of Natural Resources; Dorest Harvey, Private Sector; Lauren Hill, Governor’s Policy Research Office; Terry Pell, State Patrol; and Rod Wagner, Library Commission
ROLL CALL, MEETING NOTICE & OPEN MEETINGS ACT INFORMATION
Ms. Decker called the meeting to order at 1:35 p.m. There were 15 voting members at the time of roll call. It was stated that the meeting notice was posted to the NITC, State Government Council and Nebraska Public Meeting Calendar Websites on May 2, 2007 and that the agenda posted to the NITC Website on June 8, 2007. A copy of the Open Meetings Act was located on the front table.
PUBLIC COMMENT
There was no public comment.
APPROVAL OF APRIL 12, 2007 MINUTES
Mr. Flanagan moved to approve the April 12, 2007 minutes as presented. Mr. Conroy seconded. Roll call vote: Beecham-Yes, Burling-Yes, Cecrle-Yes, Conroy-Yes, Daws-Abstained, Decker-Yes, Dey-Yes, Flanagan-Yes, Gettemy-Yes, Lee-Yes, Miller-Yes, Ohmberger-Yes, Overton-Yes, Peterson-Yes, Shanahan-Yes, and Wehling-Yes. Results: Yes-15, No-0, Abstained-1. Motion carried.
Mr. Olligmueller and Mr. Wells arrived at the meeting.
GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY COLLABORATION FUND
GIS - Nebraska Geospatial Data Sharing and Web Services Network
Mr. Becker provided background information on the use of the fund. For early funding cycles, the fund was awarded through competitive grant requests. Later, the fund was used for enterprise-type projects. The State Government Council recommends how the funds will be used.
Mr. Henderson and Mr. Zink provided historical information on the GIS Steering Committee. In the early years, the State of Nebraska’s efforts comprised of a one technical person solely working on GIS. Over the years, state government has been trying to obtain data from federal government agencies and vise versa. There is an information sharing initiative from the Federal Government to work with state governments. State government is working towards establishing a central suppository for GIS information. The Nebraska GIS Steering Committee has submitted a 2-year collaborative grant to the Office of the CIO.
Members were given an opportunity to ask questions. Items of discussion included:
- Suggested that the GTCF funds be utilized to fund projects that did not get appropriated through the budget process.
- What is funding mechanism after the two-year period? Mr. Henderson stated that agencies on the GIS Steering Committee will explore continued funding through their agencies and/or federal funds and grants.
- A service fee was suggested as a means of continued funding.
- In-kind donation would be in the form of agencies providing data.
- What is the payback to agencies? Paybacks would include responsiveness, ease of accomplishing data requests, and electronic monitoring just to name a few.
- GIS could be a shared services sponsored by the Office of the CIO.
- Who serves on the GIS Steering Committee? The committee members are representatives from Department of Roads, Dept. of Natural Resources, Natural Resource Districts, Dept. of Environmental Quality, Policy Research Office, county and city government, and public power districts.
Mr. Beecham moved to recommend approval of the GIS project grant request to the NITC. Mr. Miller seconded. Roll call vote: Beecham-Yes, Burling-Yes, Cecrle-Abstain, Conroy-Yes, Daws-Abstain, Decker-Abstain, Dey-Yes, Flanagan-Yes, Gettemy-Yes, Lee-Yes, Miller-Yes, Ohmberger-Yes, Oligmueller-Yes, Overton-Yes, Peterson-Yes, Shanahan-Yes, Wehling-Yes, and Wells-Yes. Results: Yes-15, No-0, Abstained-3. Motion carried.
At a future meeting, Mr. Burling would like to give a presentation on a shared data project in which DEQ is a participant.
SHARED SERVICES UPDATE
VoIP and VRU, Jayne Scofield. Ms. Scofield was not able to attend the meeting.
Credit Card Processing, Steve Hartman. Any agencies doing credit card processing should have received memo from the State Treasures office. There will training available for agencies on June 15th, June 20th and July 9th. First National Bank of Omaha wants one single compliance report from the State. Currently, there are 30 state agencies doing these types of transactions. Each of these agencies may have different ways of complying with security and firewalls. There will be fines for non-compliance.
Email, Brenda Decker. On June 6th, Governor Heineman held a meeting with agency directors to discuss email. Discussion topics included the need for one email system, business drivers, and related issues.
Ms. Decker provided a handout of the presentation provided to the directors regarding the review of the state's email environment.
After much review, it was recommended to the Governor to consolidate into one email system utilizing Microsoft Exchange.
Ms. Decker informed the Council that the Governor is also requesting a common naming convention for email address -- Nebraska.gov. The transition will take 2-3 years to complete. The Office of the CIO will be one of the first agencies to transition.
Council members had an opportunity to ask questions and provide comment:
- State Government Council would like to have an opportunity to discuss and address issues concerns the naming convention.
- Will there be user training? Options for user training are being discussed.
- If Exchange becomes the option, will agencies get better pricing for Microsoft Office? This has not been discussed.
- Will agencies be granted administrator privileges? There has been no decision made regarding this topic. Work groups of agency technical staff will be organized to address this issue, agency technical needs and records retention requirements.
STATE GOVERNMENT COUNCIL CHARTER AMENDMENT
Under 6.2.2 Other Members, the amendment to the charter will read as follows:
6.2.2.10 Two (2) representatives from the general public with extensive IT
experience major private sector information technology users, to be appointed by
the Commission.
Mr. Shanahan moved to recommend the State Government Council charter amendment to the NITC for final approval. Mr. Beecham seconded. Roll call vote: Beecham-Yes, Burling-Yes, Cecrle-Yes, Conroy-Yes, Daws-Yes, Decker-Abstain, Dey-Yes, Flanagan-Abstain, Gettemy-Yes, Lee-Yes, Miller-Yes, Ohmberger-Yes, Oligmueller-Yes, Overton-Yes, Peterson-Yes, Shanahan-Yes, Wehling-Yes, and Wells-Yes. Results: Yes-17, No-0, Abstained-1. Motion carried.
OTHER
There was no other business.
AGENCY REPORTS
Workers Compensation Court. Mr. Cecrle asked for council members’ assistance by critiquing his ARMA Conference presentation titled “Managing Structured and Unstructured Data in Relational Databases as Records”. Members were to let him know by June 22nd if they were interested. There were no bids submitted for the Work Flow project, so it will be released again. The Court Administrator has tasked Mr. Cecrle to find a replacement for Lotus Notes yellow pages and court procedures. He suggested that this could possibly be a shared service.
Department of Labor, Bob Shanahan. By the end of April, all unemployment payments will be done electronically. There will be no paper checks after the Fall of 2007.
Department of Corrections, George Wells. By the next SGC meting, they will be doing telehealth services and possible video conferencing from district courts.
NEXT MEETING DATE AND TIME AND MEETING ADJOURNMENT
The next meeting of the NITC State Government Council will be held on July 12, 2007, 1:30 p.m. The location will be determined.
With no further business, Ms. Lee moved to adjourn the meeting. Mr. Flanagan seconded. All were in favor. Motion carried.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:40 p.m.Meeting minutes were taken by Lori Lopez Urdiales and reviewed by Rick Becker of the Office of the CIO.
Meeting Minutes