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With eHawaiigov, state services
By Richard Borreca
and information are just
a click away
Star-BulletinBY looking at government from the outside in, scores of state government's most dedicated paper shufflers are pushing and pulling Hawaii into a new age of communication.
After years of being ranked at or near the bottom by national surveys, state government is getting wired and going online.
To do it, the state brought in a private company, Hawaii Information Consortium, affiliated with the National Information Consortium, to find out what services the state can put on the Internet.
The firm redesigned the state's Web site so it answers the questions asked by citizens, not bureaucrats.
The old site is http://www.state.hi.us -- the new site is http://www.eHawaiigov.org
The private company is motivated to work fast because it only makes a profit on what it can charge a service fee for. Already state freshwater fishing licenses are available online. You must add a dollar to the cost for the service of printing it out on your computer printer instead of standing in line at a fishing supply store.
Some projects aren't designed to make money, but to get information out to the public. A new state law mandated that professional service contracts be available for inspection online. A team composed of Edward Rho, Dave DeWitt, John Pescador and Vic Macapagal with the state Department of Accounting and General Services, was told to get it up and running in two weeks."Normally this is something that could have taken years, but we worked weekends and holidays until midnight, so once we were mandated to do it, we didn't have a choice," Rho said.
The new system is at http://hahalua.icsd.hawaii.gov/professionalservices/
It allows anyone to track who is getting what state contract and how much the state is paying for it.
Good for the consumer
Kathy Matayoshi, Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs director, who is coordinating the state Internet project, says the state is doing two things: first looking at government from the viewpoint of the consumer, not the bureaucracy, and second, moving huge amounts of information onto the Internet."In our department (which handles licensing and business registration) we have a lot of paper; I have an entire basement of paper," she says.
The paper is turned into information on the Internet as state officials review all their holdings and think about who would be interested in a government service or data.
The Tax Department wants to get real tax services on the Internet, so citizens can file their taxes online and check for refunds.
The state Budget Department wants to put its unclaimed property listings online so citizens can easily search it.
But with both examples there are delays, Matayoshi said.
"The Tax Department is very interested, but they are revamping their back-end database and it is taking time," she said.
"B&F (Budget Department) has found that some of their information isn't kept on computers, they only have hard copies -- paper -- so first they have to get computerized." One service that both the state and the Legislature want to see online is the sex offender database, which will feature the names, streets and photographs of convicted sex offenders living in Hawaii.
Online users will be alerted to convicted sex offenders in their neighborhoods by searching by name, street or even zip code.
"The sex offender database is going through rigorous testing. What you don't want to do is make a mistake publishing the wrong name," Matayoshi said.
Sen. David Ige, an electrical engineer, has been pushing the state for six years to get more involved with the Internet.
"The whole purpose to have the portal (the state's new Internet site) is to have it easier to do business with the state," Ige said. "So you can do things like getting camping permits, checking on taxes, pay library fines on online.
"We have to make it more convenient," Ige said.
Because of Hawaii's centralized state government, the state captures much of the government information in Hawaii, from school data to corporate registration and crime statistics.
Information people want
Aka DeMesa, general manager of Hawaii Information Consortium, wants to take the most in-demand information and offer it on the Internet."We go out and talk to the state agencies, telling them what we have to offer," he said.
The agencies come back with a priority list of what they have to offer and we look at what is of real service to people or what has a possibility of a transaction fee," he said.
Because DeMesa's firm is not charging for the basic Internet portal for the state, he must make a profit on finding new services for government to perform.
For instance, businesses now must send in excise taxes to the state, perhaps this can be done through a Web page that calculates and tracks how much a business owes. The amount could be sent to the tax collector electronically.Or perhaps you are a lawyer or real estate broker wanting to know who owns a specific parcel of land. DeMesa's firm could set up a way for you to search for property or corporate officers.
If companies already offer a similar service, such as the Hawaii TMK company, DeMesa says he can add services to their existing businesses.
"We are looking at putting convenience fees on new applications," he said.
With all the excitement on new Internet moves, there are some old-fashioned government worries, Matayoshi said.
For instance, if her department reaches its goal of becoming a "paperless agency" what happens when someone wants a record of correspondence
How long does the agency have to keep copies of email, and what specific information can be made available to court-ordered requests?
Also, what about information tracking?
A Web site is capable of tracking much information about a person that visits it, including who the person is, if they have to log on with a password. Can that information be turned over if it is subpoenaed?
Matayoshi says various state task forces are working on those questions, but so far there is no specific policy on an Internet privacy.
