PTI announces 2004 Solutions Award winners
Local governments recognized for their use of technology

The Public Technology Institute (PTI) announced the winners of its 2004 Solutions Awards. "Solutions" is the annual, national competition recognizing city and county governments that have demonstrated how, through the use of technology, they have improved the delivery of services to constituents, reduced costs or generated new revenues. PTI is a national nonprofit technology research and development organization charged with bringing the benefits of technology to local governments.

Entries were judged with other jurisdictions of similar size in the following technology categories: energy, environment, public safety, telecommunications and information technology, and transportation. A panel of judges from local government associations and industry selected the winning entries.

In the large government category (population of 700,000 and greater), the award winners are:

Telecommunications and Information Technology

• The City and County of Philadelphia for the entry, Business Process Management. The Mayor’s Office of Information Services led this initiative to select an automated enterprise solution for city departments that wished to implement business automation. Departments now have the capability to build feature-rich and browser-based workflow applications.

Environment

• Phoenix, Ariz. for the entry, Master Plan Park/Cross-Country Track. This program demonstrated the collaborative process between city agencies in the creation of a 688-acre park site.

Public Safety

• Phoenix, Ariz. for the entry, Flash-Cam – Graffiti Vandalism Deterrent Program. The city uses a FlashCam-530 as a programmable vandalism deterrent system. Placed at a graffiti-prone location the camera detects motion and takes a series of 35mm photographs of vandals. It operates during daylight or total darkness and includes a voice activation system which issues a warning to vandals.

• Phoenix, Ariz. for the entry, Interactive Disclosure Center (Honorable Mention). The center provides the calibration records for all 28 of the city’s Intoxylizer ^® breath-testing instruments from 1998 to the present, and provides 24-hour access to all of the records via the Web.

• Phoenix, Ariz. for the entry, Housing Conditions Study with Use of Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) for Field Survey Data Collection (Honorable Mention). This program highlights how the use of PDAs increased accuracy, productivity and efficiency of data collection for a housing conditions study by the city in partnership with Arizona State University.

In the medium government category (population 100,000 to 699,999), the award winners are:

Telecommunications and Information Technology

• Washington, D.C. for the entry, Health Professional Licensing Administration’s License 2000. License 2000 is a software application that integrates application processing, licensee administration, enforcement management (complaint, compliance, and rehabilitation), examination tracking and scheduling, reporting and automated renewal processing as part of the licensing process for health professionals. The results are dramatically faster license processing, higher quality health care for District residents and an expected savings of $2.5 million (net) to taxpayers in FY04.

• Tucson, Ariz. for the entry, STAR Service Program (Honorable Mention). The city used its Web site, civic television channel, online discussions and their CRM system to engage citizens in discussions on ways to manage current resources and initiate community involvement in long-range planning.

• Fort Worth, Texas for the entry, Library Customer Account Self-Service (Honorable Mention). The Public Library installed an update of its automated library management system. This allows library customers to access and manage their accounts 24 hours a day and includes an automated call or e-mail feature that reminds customers of overdue materials or notifies them that reserved materials are available.

• Washtenaw County, Mich. for the entry, Employee Central (Honorable Mention). Bringing important information and daily communication to employees, Washtenaw County created the open source-based Employee Central Web site so employees have easy access to information that can be easily updated and supported.

Energy

• Johnson County, Kan. for the entry, Sunset Drive County Office Building (Honorable Mention). The county developed a long-range strategic facilities master plan and sustainability guidelines for the ultimate construction of an energy-efficient and environmentally friendly county-owned building.

Public Safety

• Washington, D.C. for the entry, Emergency Information Center Web site (Winner). The Emergency Information Center was developed to make emergency information more comprehensive and accessible to residents and visitors. The Center Web site has two main goals: To give District residents important general information about what to do in various emergency situations, and to provide critical information specific to an ongoing emergency.

• Fort Worth, Texas for the entry, Digital Recording in the Internal Affairs Division (Honorable Mention). As part of the police department’s effort to streamline the complaint review process, the police department purchased digital audio and video recorders to record interviews, eliminating the need for audio and video cassettes and storage space.

In the small government category (population less than 100,000) the award winners are:

Energy

• Santa Monica, Calif. for the entry, Institutional Fiber Optic Network. Construction of this network means that facilities owned by the city, school and college districts now have a secure and redundant emergency communications loop connecting the three agencies, resulting in significant reductions in costs for voice, data and video communications.

• San Carlos, Calif. for the entry, Photovoltaic Generation Project at City Corporation Yard (Honorable Mention). The city installed self-generating Photovoltaic cells for the City Corporation Yard in an effort to address the increasing cost and fluctuation of energy prices while increasing renewable energy production.

The award winners will be recognized at two venues during the 2005 Congress of Public Technologists, April 13–15 in Multnomah County (Portland), Ore. Winners have been invited to present case studies on their programs during the Solutions Showcase April 13, and winners will be presented with their awards during a ceremony April 14.

(For additional information, contact Dale Bowen, 202/626-2456, dbowen@pti.org.)