Listen to this examination of the strategies governments and technology companies are using to modernize technology to increase the accessibility and functionality of digital citizen services.
Speaker 1: On behalf of FedInsider and Carahsoft, we would like to welcome you to today's podcast focused around legacy modernization upgrade to citizen centric digital services. In the first panel of the series, CIOs from across the country need to discuss their own challenges and successes in modernizing their legacy systems and Citizen Services.
John Breeden II: Thank you for joining us. I'm John Breeden and I will be moderating what I know will be a lively and interesting discussion about how state and local governments are rapidly transforming their infrastructures to support digital Citizen Services. Digital Services is a priority across all 50 states, as well as within many of the counties and cities that reside within them. In the most recent National Association of State CIO survey, advancing digital services ranked number two in priority list after cybersecurity. Many states are already advancing impressive programs. And we have amazing speakers with us from across the country, representing Virginia, Maine, Vermont, Maryland, and the city of Riley, North Carolina with us today. So let me welcome each one of them and then we can get started with today's fireside chat. First off, I would like to welcome Nelson Moe, the Chief Information Officer of the Commonwealth of Virginia, can you tell our audience a little bit about how technology initiatives are handled within your state and the size of the population you serve, both within your government and in terms of your citizens.
Nelson Moe: First of all, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here and with all the distinguished panel members and thank you to Carahsoft for sponsoring this for FedInsider. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Virginia it agency, I have a chance to lead service 65 other state agencies and 55,000 state employees using a consolidated multi supplier model one to three most suppliers in a country models in the country along with Texas and Georgia. We approach our technology needs to this model as an information service broker or CIO as a broker. Our enterprise services include infrastructure, networking, computing, storage, security, and then identity access management. For our 65 customer agencies. We support a population of about eight and a half million here in Virginia with diverse needs across the Commonwealth as far as population geography, size and capability and state agencies. So we know that a one size fits all is not optimal. So with the multi supplier model, we can work to build customized services based on needs and best of breed methodology for suppliers provides unique flexibility, partnership prospects, opportunities for competition evaluated for agency customers, when an agency or group of agencies has a technical need, we collaborate directly with them to achieve their goals and anticipate future needs. We actively engage our customers or agency customers at every step of the process from procurement, the governance, project execution, so on. We have a robust customer engagement strategy that involves multiple meetings a month and our service copayments to committees. I've done this, but I've had excellent support from administration and my Cabinet Secretary of Secretary Administration Secretary General Johnson. John, that's, that's how I answer that question. Any other thoughts?
John Breeden II: No, that's really good. And that's a great description of how to manage a very large state with a lot of diverse population. I'm sure we'll dive into that in a bit. So thank you very much, Nelson. Let's move on to Fred Brittain. He is the chief information officer with the state of Maine. Fred, it's an honor to have you joining us today. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your state government and the kinds of services that you provide for your workforce and your residents?
Fred Brittain: Sure, and thanks a bunch for having me. Thank you, Carahsoft. And I also should say it's an it's a delight to have a chance to do this panel with some of my peers. Our states have an awful lot of difference. But there's probably a number of things across digital services that are very similar across state governments, local governments and what have you. Here in Maine, we're the IT shop is consult is a consolidated shop. So about 15 years ago, the governor at the time was looking for some efficiencies, and moved all the technology staff out of various agencies and put them into a central unit, saying not only should we get some efficiencies, but we should also now have a technology operation that can lead the way to bring the state forward. So that model is a difficult model at times politically, but I think it is it is particularly effective. But let me talk a little bit about services. And I think you would find that regardless of what government you happen to reside within their purview, you're going to find there are far more digital services available to citizens than you would ever realize. I think we're all familiar with things like trying to do a driver's license renewal or maybe I want a fishing license or something like that. That's Things that your average citizen wants the dog license. But the other thing that states do we certainly do here in Maine is dozens and dozens of different types of professional licensing that can be acquired online. Things around licenses from environmental protection to certify sites, fishermen, when they come in, when they come in off the waters, commercial fishermen have to report their catch. And yes, here in Maine that is inclusive of lobster. Statewide GIS services is something that is in high demand, particularly here in COVID. And we've all read around the boom in housing, and particularly people relocating now that work is a greater option. And certainly rural states are seeing an influx. And so we see a big uptick in the use of people coming to services looking for parcel maps, what might be public access maps, and a lot a lot happening in the GIS space. One of the places the main among some of the other states has gone early as adult use marijuana and running full seed to sale services online is critical, whether that's consumer medical providers, that's turned into a big industry. And then we're all pretty familiar with things like unemployment insurance that have taken off rapidly. I think in the last year, probably many of us, at the state level have put in massive investments into those systems to bring them up to speed with that big bump, and all the way to things like Medicaid eligibility and right so it's really across the spectrum of digital services. And the thing that I would point out is, as we all went into these services many years ago, they were designed to augment face to face interaction. And now it's really flipping around where this really is the primary point and face to face or telephone based services are secondary. And that's the big swing for us. So thanks for having me.
John Breeden II: Absolutely. And lots of interesting points for it. Appreciate that. Joining us from the state of Vermont is john Quinn, where he serves as the Secretary of digital services and the Chief Information Officer. John, thank you for joining us today. Tell us a little bit about Vermont and the kinds of things that you do as the Secretary of digital services and the Chief Information Officer.
John Quinn III: Here in Vermont, we have a fairly small population compared to some of the other states in the northeast a lot like Fred we are consolidated IT shop where we are responsible for 100% of the executive branch of state government. And we provide everything from geospatial data and mapping to architecture and data set data centers and frontline applications. So we do a little bit of everything here at the state where we really been focused is those digital government applications and bringing online services for Vermonters as the Secretary of digital services, I oversee a staff of just under 400 people. And our model is have about two thirds of those people deployed to the agencies sitting with the business professionals around the state to ensure that we understand that the business units and their line of businesses and that we can have effective collaboration among our team members and the business side, team members to make sure that we're all on the same page as far as what we're doing and what's needed. And that's been a good model here in Vermont. And we've been able to accomplish a lot over the past four years, I was elected or I was appointed, excuse me in 2017. After Governor Scott was elected to office that same year, he created the agency a digital services. So we're a fairly new IT shop or consolidated IT shop. And so far, it's been a lot of the you know, what do we have for applications? What do we have for security? What do we have for data, and really building a strong foundation on how we can move forward to provide services in a more cost effective way and a more efficient way for not only our staff, but for citizens doing business with Vermont. And we do everything from business portals to permit navigation, ensuring people know how to get the right permits to healthcare eligibility and driver's licenses, childcare system. So it's really, you know, the full gamut of applications that we're responsible for here.
John Breeden II: Excellent. And we'll dive into some of your priorities and how you're implementing those in Vermont in just a bit. But thank you for that quick overview. And also with us today is the secretary of information technology with the state of Maryland. Joining us again for another show. We're happy to have him back. It's Michael Leary. Michael, it's an honor to have you with us here today. In terms of it in Maryland. Maryland has a reputation for being a really a leader in this area. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it in Maryland, and why the state has that reputation?
Michael Leahy: Certainly, thanks so much, john. And great to be here. Thanks to the folks from Carahsoft, I have to tell you listen closely to my peers, because part of our leadership review is from talking to these folks. And just going through their ideas, we're a little different in that we are still a very federated IT system. In fact, there are five state executive agencies in Maryland that have larger it staffs than my entire agency. And that presents some very interesting challenges and opportunities. The state has a population of just over 6 million people, and there are approximately 50,000 state employees. And with regard to the IT staff, my civil service staff is approximately 200 people. And we have another number of people who are contractors working under specific technology engagements and contracts, that double the size of the agency. As you said, we are attempting to be all things to all people. And I like to tell people that our agencies the tall, short, fat skinny person of government agencies, and because we're in a federated system, our goal using digital technology is to find ways to create an enterprise, so that the tools available to all of these agencies with massive differential needs will be available digitally and through either singular portals or applications. And I'll give you a real quick example. We have a portal we call the One Stop portal, where ultimately, we will have all of the states digital applications available to citizenry, citizens will have a single accounts with a single identity. And it should make for a very easy interaction for citizens. But we started by building an elastic search engine for all permits and all interaction folks might have with government. So even if you don't know what agency to go to, and we used to play games, like where do you have to go to get a professional wrestling license in Maryland? No one could tell you even the agency that was responsible couldn't tell you because it doesn't happen very often, where you can find it with the search engine. And then secondly, to the point both Fred and john made, we are a very diverse state in that we have a continuous urban population from Baltimore, down to the District of Columbia through the middle of the state. But both the western and eastern parts of the state are far more rural, far more agriculturally oriented, and have a different set of needs than urban areas. And so as Fred said, now folks are moving to using cell phones for everything. People under 35 years ago, today, the cutoff age is around 45. People above 45 would still prefer to do things the old fashioned way, people under 45 would prefer to do it digitally. And so we are attempting to move our systems in a way that allow people who are comfortable with the existing system to still have access to services, but to effectively create methodologies where we lower the cost both in terms of time and convenience, and the actual economic cost to the citizenry to interact. And to do business with the state.
John Breeden II: Makes a lot of sense. And as a resident of Maryland, I'm going to be signing up to become a professional wrestler here, right after the show. So thank you for that. And last but not least, we have Jim Alberque is the GIS and emerging technology manager with the city of Raleigh in North Carolina. Jim, thank you for joining us today to talk about this important topic. And we're representing a city here with us. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your job there and the size of the population that you serve there in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina?
Jim Alberque: Sure. Thanks, john. So let me start by talking a little bit about Raleigh, North Carolina. So Raleigh, North Carolina is the capital. It's one of the fastest growing cities in the country. And the region itself is actually very fast growing as well. There are about a half a million people, just under half a million people that live in Raleigh, and the county is just over a million people. And one of the things about Raleigh that you'll notice is if you look at any top 10 list in the last 10 years, it usually includes Raleigh, which is great And also puts a lot of pressure on the IT system. How you deal with that growth is, is one of the key concerns of our constituency. And we use technology all over the place to do that. So my role in the city is kind of focused on digital services, particularly public facing digital services. So manage the website, we have a kind of portfolio of digital communication technology, GIS, and web website technology. And I'm also matrix to the Smart City programs, we have a smart city program that looks at leveraging technology to both drive efficiencies and services, as well as offer new services, as well as you know, meet citizens needs where they are.
John Breeden II: That makes a lot of sense. And thank you. And we're going to be diving into a lot of that today. So thanks for actually all of our speakers. Today, on the show, we want to talk about digital services, I want to get into a little bit about the impact of the pandemic, which has affected all of us, and also to talk about the digital divide, which is something that I think everybody is probably trying to overcome. They're in their different areas. But I wanted to start maybe let's, let's kind of set the groundwork and talk about some of the priorities that you guys are working on. I know you all mentioned a lot of different programs. But Fred, let's start with you on this one. I know that Maine is beautiful state, it's extremely rich in terms of natural resources, and outdoor activities. So I was curious if when you're putting together your digital services list if, if that kind of drives your priority list a little bit there up in Maine.
Fred Brittain: Thanks. Yeah, I mean, it surely does. And so there is sort of the some of the pre pandemic priorities that certainly have altered some things have gone back up the list. One of the challenges in Maine is its it, this is one of the states where the average, median, or the median income is particularly low. And we are very interested in attracting business. So things around economic development, how do we make people want to come and live in and bring their businesses here to Maine? So there's certainly been a number of investments, there is where we spent a fair bit of time in planning and we're an implementation of how do we create sort of, as Mike was describing the One Stop for citizens. And one of the things we'd like to do is the is the business one stop, to try to help encourage people to come here and make it easy to run a business here, at least in working with the state. So that's pretty high. What we have seen and I know we're going to talk a little bit about impact of the pandemic later, was Maine's number one industry is tourism. So when all of a sudden states are going into lockdown and quarantine rules are in place, this becomes really hard. So this is this introduces a whole set of priorities that are now post pandemic, how do we get people in and one of the actually lovely things that we found, as we thought about what's going to happen to our revenues, and it was spring going into summer, one of the unexpected things was we saw our services online for campground reservations, setting all-time records, people saying, Hey, I might not be able to come and stay in that cute little b&b on the coast. But I can come up and be in a tent until we've seen those services skyrocket. So we're also in addition to business now, starting to think a lot more about what are the online services that would support other types of tourism, both traditional and perhaps different in a post pandemic world. Outdoors, always a priority. And again, just like campground reservations, we've set records on ATV registrations, boat registrations, fishing licenses are all up. So as we have more people coming in and use those services, those services do get a lot more attention saying how can we streamline these make them easier? One example there's a we're following suit. I mean, as Mike talked about, states watch each other, because we learn an awful lot. And we see. And I think in this case, Mississippi went off and did the ability to just have your driver your fishing license auto renewed until you say stop. We thought that's a pretty good idea. So let's do that. So really kind of focusing in on where are what are the state's priorities? But also, what is the new look at services and what are people clamoring for?
John Breeden II: That makes a lot of sense. It makes me want to come up there and visit you guys. So maybe I'll do that soon. Thank you, Jim working within a city how much of what you do in terms of your digitalization programs is dictated by the state or the county and how much of it is actually able to come up through city government and what kinds of digital programs are of primary importance to the city of Raleigh and how much of that is actually set by your city government.
Jim Alberque: Sure, so use the word dictated very little as dictated, but it does represent that relationship represents an opportunity. And something I wanted to pick up on that Fred said that is important is states watch each other. I would say governments in general watch each other. There's a, there's a video I've seen of a grandmother and a Great Dane and the grandmother is holding a leash. And she throws out a bone and the Great Dane runs off and she goes horizontal. And that's how I see kind of our relationship with the county and the state, sometimes where the dog and we're polling the state or the county with us, and sometimes the state or the county is the is the dog, and we kind of pick up on some of the stuff that they're doing. One of the key benefits, obviously, is procurement. Right? We often look to them for the services that they're procuring. And often as a way to expedite kind of contracts, we're able to do that. But in addition to that, they're doing all sorts of work in the space of improved digital payments, digital signatures, web technology, portals that we're consistently looking at, and looking for opportunities to collaborate, we have a pretty deep relationship with our county. And that's been over a years of collaboration around specifically around GIS and offering kind of Portal around data and maps.
John Breeden II: That makes a lot of sense. Thank you very much, Jim. Appreciate your answers on that. So John, what about the state of Vermont? How did you begin to approach the digital programs within your state, you say you have a relatively new agency. So looking at everything that needs to get done up there, what kind of programs were given priority for your citizens there in Vermont?
John Quinn III: Well, our approach comes straight down from the governor's three guiding principles of growing the economy, making Vermont more affordable and protecting its most vulnerable. When we looked across the applications in the enterprise here in the state of Vermont, we realized that a large majority of our IT infrastructure was outdated. So our strategy really focuses around modernization, security, and digital government and putting those three together as we modernize. Right. So we've focused on things like eligibility and enrollment for our citizens for health care services, environmental notice, bulletins, to be able to help small businesses out understand what the environmental bulletins were going to be in the state what was changed what was new, a picture of it on how you do business with the state of Vermont, led testing in schools to make sure that we're building systems where we can use our data to, you know, protect our, our children, and the lead that was found in our, you know, some of our school districts across Vermont, really, you know, impressive applications that we built, or that we didn't build, but we implemented was around Medicare and Medicaid provider enrollment, we brought that process from 120 days down to 20 days for that enrollment period. So, you know, making it easier to do business in Vermont, in a culture of service license renewal portal, and you know, a lot like me and a lot like Maryland, we rely on our peers across the United States to understand what's going on out there. And then the nascio group has been invaluable to the state of Vermont and, you know, really collaborating and understanding what's going on and other states, we're focused on permit navigation and mobile applications for your hunting and fishing and all things outdoors, as well as our geospatial space. And making sure that whether it's Paris, or tax maps, or any of that type of information is available to our citizens to you know, provide not only transparency, but data at their fingertips to be able to make it easier to do business. And like Maryland and Maine, we're working on a holistic business portal, whereas Maryland stated, and we're using a similar platform to Maryland to be able to, you know, have a one stop shop, get your permits, get your licenses understand what exactly you need to create a business here in Vermont.
John Breeden II: Makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that. So Nelson, how is Virginia faring in terms of their digital programs? You have a large state with a lot of both urban and rural areas, as you mentioned. So in a state with so many competing interests and such a large area, how do you prioritize your digital programs for citizens?
Nelson Moe: Well, John, thank you for the question. The long answer is we're targeting services and programs that drive the most value for our customer agents. In the last year obviously has been COVID related and making sure we had the data. And the and the services and the call center set up to put shots in arms and get the most vulnerable citizens the services, they needed an equitable fashion. But getting back to services were part of that we partnered with DMV as they digitize their services, so they could maintain, at least for now a reservation based system. So for COVID, so they can keep the exposure down as we work through this thing. So that's basically it services and programs. At an enterprise level, we focus on ever number of new tools, and that we think will have rapid return on investment for the entire enterprise. With always a cybersecurity risk and posture view on the saying we want to make sure we protect the Commonwealth state and individuals applications. We're looking at, we're removing out done on progress or low code platforms for agencies as they try to become a better cost effective model for application development. And for remote work or work from home, we focused on proving our digital signature approach. So agencies could do their workflow from home. And then we've fully embraced the cloud hosting options like many states, we're focusing on private and public clouds is Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and we recently rolled out a box service for IBM box. And that those are providing ample returns for us as far as services were initiated that robotic process, automation service in that agencies can use to further to improve their services, their citizen facing entities. The other thing we're focusing now is web hosting options. And like everybody working on the bandwidth demands as it goes with becoming more and more of a digital nation.
John Breeden II: That's great. Thank you all for that I wanted to move on to the question of the pandemic. And Michael, I was going to ask you about your digital priorities in Maryland. But I think maybe it would be better just to ask you about the pandemic and your digital services for that, of course, no discussion about digital services would be complete without talking about the pandemic, which has changed and accelerated digital programs in a lot of states. So Michael, when the pandemic started, the state of Maryland was already pretty far along in a lot of ways in terms of digital Citizen Services. Like you were talking about your one stop portal, which seems to be pretty far ahead, and is also kind of a model that some of the other states are, are adopting. So what changed in terms of those efforts post pandemic? And did you have to prioritize or accelerate different aspects of your digital program?
Michael Leahy: Thanks for the question of the simple answer is there were a couple of huge practical changes. Those of you who know anything about Maryland, Governor Hogan, he is only the second republican ever elected to a second term, and Maryland is a very progressive liberal state. And the governor is one of those people that is extraordinarily practical, and has taken a customer service role in servant leadership for our state. So that played a huge piece in looking at how to respond to the pandemic. And so the example I will give you is, obviously, we went to remote work over a weekend, it had been something we had talked about a little bit, but it was not something we had anticipated changing as quickly as it did. And as a practical standpoint, our culture is such that we were allowed to make what was necessary to amend the rules. So we have some rather obtuse rules about working remotely, they were all abandoned. And we adopted a set of rules that gave us the ability to analyze what work was getting done, where people needed help, what problems were arising because of the lack of day to day contact. And it has been an amazingly productive experiment. And in fact, you know, led to me saying that we plan on remaining primarily a virtual agency going forward after things return to normal. The second piece of it is that as you said, there were a number of aspects of the pandemic that because we already had thought through not only the strategy of the technology of one stop, but the cultural aspects. So we were already thinking about how do you deal with individuals concerns about privacy? How do we deal with a contact tracing applications that were relatively limited because they had been set up before for flu and other less pandemic like conditions? And then once we started our vaccine management program, how did we make certain that we reach the most vulnerable people first, because those folks tended to be older weren't necessarily online or using texting, we discovered they do in large numbers. And so we have taken everything we learned about having the courage to change your culture to fit your mission to heart, and we have a governor, that's let us do that. So I think that has been the biggest lesson, we've learned from the pandemic, that our bureaucracies really are oriented towards serving the citizens. And they're actually extraordinarily good at it when you allow them to use their creativity. And, you know, their work ethic.
John Breeden II: Makes a lot of sense. Thank you, Michael. And, Jim, I wanted to ask you this question as well, since you represent a city as opposed to an entire state, I assume that your state and your county probably also had initiatives in place to deal with a pandemic. But the city also beef up its own digital Citizen Services efforts to try to help its residents, especially given that the pandemic seems to have at least initially hit cities pretty hard.
Jim Alberque: Yeah, definitely. So I think one of the terms I think I've heard before is don't let a good tragedy go to waste. And we definitely didn't let that happen. So some of the things that we saw around the appetite and demand for increased digital services was around one supporting our downtown businesses, or businesses in general. So local businesses, how can we specifically in the service industry, can we use communication technology, asset management, curb space management applications to help dynamically change how people flow around our city to allow those businesses to flourish? Or at least mitigate some of the impact? Secondly was in local government, we have plenty of boards and commissions. And so trying to support the virtual meeting, I can probably say, I don't think we had one cat zoom case in all of our public meetings. But something that I think that's going to happen is, is that right? There's going to be, this is the new normal, this is a way this is a type of business that we're going to need to support going forward. And there's a whole bunch of benefits outside of just supporting kind of the virtual access and citizen engagement piece. It has we've seen increased in accessibility, and access for the entire constituency, through some of this demand. And so we're excited about seeing where that goes.
John Breeden II: Make sense. So another topic that I know you all are excited to talk about. And it comes up all the time, when we talk about digital services, I've done a bunch of shows about this particular topic, and it always seems to come up and it's the digital divide. And it's were for those of you in our audience who may not know what the digital divide is, it's kind of this imaginary line where the people who live on one side of it have good affordable broadband internet connectivity, while others have to make do with aging, slow or overly expensive connectivity options, or simply live in a place where there's no connectivity. So Fred, I wanted to start with you on this one. I know that Maine has kind of a different situation than some of our other states, because I believe you have the oldest population in the entire country. And sometimes the digital divide can happen because of usability issues, where people may not feel comfortable, they may have cable or internet or satellite or something to their house, but they don't know how to use it, or they don't feel comfortable using it. So how do you deal with issues like that? In Maine, given your unique state population?
Fred Brittain: Yeah, we are. So main is we have the highest they're the oldest median age population in the country. And when we talk about digital divide, or digital equity and inclusion, there's a number of flavors of it. There's the question of do you have access? And that's the broadband kinds of questions do you have a device in the home, but keeping in mind also, if you have access, right, if the if the fiber comes to your house, but you can't afford to pay a company to light it up, you don't have access, it doesn't matter that it's there if you can't afford it, and then if you can't afford it, and you have it, do you know how to use it. And then there's a fourth category, which is you may have access, you may know how to use it. But let's keep in mind, one in four Americans has some sort of disability. So as we talk about an aging population, we also have to think about a population that may have issues seeing colors on the screen issues navigating web pages. And so taking these into account is important. There is a Center for Digital equity and inclusion is run by the National Center for Digital inequity inclusion, run by a really phenomenal person, her name is Susan Corbett. And they look, they look at this from the standpoint of if you have access, but you can't use it. And they do particularly for seniors, they offer all kinds of free training on even the most basic things around getting online, protecting yourself. And so supporting these kinds of programs is really important. also finding right with the broadband question, the there's something called the main school and library network, which is managed by the University of Maine system that provides fiber connectivity to every public library and K 12. In the state, as well as all the University Centers and during the pandemic. Within the first couple weeks of the pandemic, they were able to turn around and light up every single one of those sites for public access. So people could get to it from the parking lot if they needed to. We do need to keep in mind, they may not have the devices, they may not have the ability, so a lot of public programs around how can we support putting devices in their hands and if their devices there? How can we support teaching them how to use it? And then from the state perspective, when we put applications out, really putting a focus on the usability and not just checking the box saying the function works. For vendors out there, we are now requiring any vendor that comes in with a digital product that's citizen facing and even internally facing, we're now requiring something called the voluntary product accessibility template vpat, which is something the federal government requires the vendors as well, which is self-reporting of how their tools work as set to federal disability standards. And so I'd like to just sort of throw in all of those are really important as we think about usability is what is the population you're working with? And what are those who those people who are going to be limited? Right? When they can't get in a car? And go do that face to face interaction? What happens if they can't communicate with government?
John Breeden II: A lot to consider. Thank you, Fred. So John, what's the situation like in Vermont? What are your main issues with the digital divide in your state? And what kinds of programs are you supporting to help alleviate the situation there?
John Quinn III: But in Vermont, you know, we're a lot like Maine as far as our rural landscape. And so, you know, we have big portions of Vermont that either are underserved or not served at all. And so the approach that we've taken is to create legislation that allows towns to join together to create union communication union districts. And what that's done is really, you know, given the town's the ability to take digital divided into their own hands and start to do propagation and, you know, really utilize its citizens and their expertise, in a lot of cases have had expertise in fiber or wireless. And, you know, put plans together to help solve the problem that we have across the state. So the governor's proposed in the upcoming budget, another 100, and $50 million to go to Union districts to build our fiber network across Vermont, like others have said that speed is, speed is an issue. So if you're in an underserved area, grants will be available to, to those union districts to replace maybe old coal x with fiber. Another area that, you know, we need to talk about is education. We sent our kids homeless last March, a lot of who didn't have internet service at home, or didn't have the speeds be able to provide or interact with their classrooms online. We worked with towns across Vermont, as well as the public library systems and stood up Wi Fi hotspots across Vermont. So at least those kids, you know, their parents could bring them down to a local hotspot to be able to download the package for the night to be able to do their homework and get the lesson for the day. So, you know, we've stood up in coordinated social platforms to help these towns and these kids talk about, you know, how can we do this in a way where, you know, we have to protect the most vulnerable and stay distance, but we also have an obligation to educate our kids. We've provided grant funding for Internet services to families that may not be able to afford it to ensure you know, as much equity as possible across the spectrum.
John Breeden II: That makes a lot of sense. It sounds like you're really working on that problem. Nelson of Virginia is a huge state, as you've mentioned with rural and urban areas. So you must experience a lot of these issues in terms of the digital divide and unequal access to digital services. How serious of this is an issue or your state and what are some of the ways that you're trying to overcome it?
Nelson Moe: Yeah, thanks for the question, john, like the others in the call the digital divide is certainly a serious issue especially we've seen in brought that brought the head and the worldwide pandemic. And when they say that Governor Northam has initiatives abroad ban to expand broadband across the Commonwealth and expand accessibility and credibility, teach Virginia and have been around record here. So an example from January 2020. Till now, there has been an approximate 150 million $150 million investment into bridging the digital divide the Commonwealth and ensuring the digital equity in a Commonwealth connected over 100,000 homes. This is in community organizations. In March of 21, there was a $20 million grant awarded to expand broadband to 17 rural localities connecting 13,000 homes. In 2021, the General Assembly allocated $49 million for each year for broadband infrastructure grant. And January 21, another $29 million was awarded to expand broadband connecting 1100 11,000 homes. So you see, there's a lot more we've a lot more we can do. The governor and his administration is working through the Connect coalition, the Virginia telecommunications initiative, across multiple grants, and so on. So, you know, like other states, Virginia's got a real population needs to be served in this area. And like my friends in Maine, and have we have we've hyper focused on x accessibility, my particular website, Virginia. gov, is we were happy with its approach. Good. So section 508 compliant, at least level double A, and we see an exponential increases in traffic to this thing. So in addition to the grants, it's also education, and then working on accessibility and training. So I agree with the panel on this topic so far.
John Breeden II: Absolutely. Thank you. So Michael, let me ask you. So I live in Maryland, obviously. So I'm very familiar with the unique layout of our state. And I know as I'm sure you do, there are really big differences in connectivity between some of our more affluent counties, and many others that are that are struggling. Are there ways that Maryland is using digital Citizen Services to try and bridge that digital divide across our state?
Michael Leahy: Simple answer is absolutely. The more complex answer is we started with the question, why, beyond simply the economics does this divide exist. And for example, in Maryland, as you said, in Western Maryland, we have lots of mountains. And the cost to run fiber up the side of a mountain is far higher than it is in the relatively flat, you know, Chesapeake Bay region. So there are some economic aspects of placing the infrastructure in use. And obviously, the private entities that are in this business for profit, are going to serve those areas that it's least expensive for them to build in. So we have done several things. The first is my agency is not responsible for dealing with the rural and other broadband divide. The legislature in Maryland, handed that off from us to the Department of Housing and Community Development. And if you think about it, that actually makes a lot of sense. Because the folks that need help with housing, and have particular poverty and community weakness issues are their day to day clients. They're also experts in finance. So they understand how to utilize the state's bonding and other resources to maximize their viability. And so they have taken on the responsibility of programmatically establishing the grants and the models. What we've done in support of them, do it at the it agency is twofold. One, I started the dialogue about two and a half years ago with folks at NTIA. And if you look at how be top money was distributed that decade ago, the documents that created those be top grants to build infrastructure to schools to government buildings to hospitals and things of that sort, talked in their preambles about the need for economic development. What has happened is, the rules also say that you can't use any of that fiber for private businesses. So the difficulty you run into is we have lots of dark fiber that was built for economic purposes. That can't be used for those purposes, because we looked at it at the time as needing to put those critical resources in the hands of schools and hospitals. We’re talking to them about specifically extending the use of dark fiber, where it currently isn't allowed by leasing it to private entities with The requirement that they expand the service area that they provide to in service, because they have access to fiber that they would have had to build themselves or they wouldn't have access to. But the second piece of this is, and people have mentioned it, but it's one of those curious critical things. There are many areas in rural areas in all states, but Maryland, particularly where people had better access a decade ago, 15 years ago than they have today, because they had access through the copper telephone wires to actually use dial up. And although it was never great, if we didn't have services, like YouTube, and Netflix and other data hogs that require lots of throughput and bandwidth, so people could do their email, they could do simple, you know, shopping online, things of that sort, that because the fiber has not replaced the copper, there's nothing in place anymore, and so they are disconnected. So we're also looking for places like that, that aren't amenable economically to build fiber to utilizing the low orbit satellite systems that are coming online. Obviously, SpaceX is system is expected to be available throughout the United States by next summer, the Amazon system is expected to be available within eight months after that. And there are three other communications conglomerates that are talking about putting satellites up that will create competition and will allow us to potentially subsidize people that don't have access to these sorts of resources. Using satellites rather than building very expensive fiber up the side of a mountain.
John Breeden II: Makes a lot of sense. I've heard a lot of good things about those low orbit satellites, I'm sure we'll be discussing that on a future show at some point. For this particular show. Unfortunately, we are really, really close to running out of time. But I have such amazing guests here today. I would be remiss if I didn't try to sneak in one more question to each of our esteemed speakers. So please try to keep your answers brief as we are close to on time. But I do want to get to all of you for one final question. So Fred, starting with you, like a lot of states, you're probably finding that a lot of your information and departments there exists in so called information silos. How did you deal with that in Maine? And what advice can you offer to other state and local governments that are experiencing a similar challenge?
Fred Brittain: Well, I can quickly tell you where we're headed, right, we want to get to a point where the citizen doesn't have to think about or they don't have to know the structure of government to navigate to the particular agency that has that service. So our intent is to build something we're going to call it access main that is similar to what Mike has described, it's a one stop, but it is tuned towards the interest that you've exhibited in the past. Our intent is to make a pitch for some of the American rescue plan act money in order to start to really get that framework underway and get it out there.
John Breeden II: Makes a lot of sense. I wish you the best of luck in that in that it. I know that's a challenging situation for a lot of folks. So John, are you experimenting with any advanced concepts in digital services up there in Vermont, like chatbots, virtual assistants, or maybe forming stronger ties with social media networks? And where you've experimented with some of those more advanced concepts, how those programs been going and how they've been received by your citizens?
John Quinn III: Yeah, you know, I think one thing that pandemic did for us, it really gave us a kick to experiment with some of these things, and to put them in place to help out our call centers, whether it was, you know, the Department of Labor and the massive amount of calls that they were getting, or our economic services division or our Chamber of Commerce, and understanding, you know, what people wanted and what they needed, and how can we possibly serve these people better, we implemented chatbots across our enterprise, and found within a day of having them on, you know, then having taken on 1000s, or 10s, of 1000s of responses. And we were able to, you know, train those things to respond better and better and better as they went. And it was a lifesaver for our call centers, our frontline staff, and it gave them the opportunity to be able to work on other things. And, you know, without that, you we would have been overwhelmed from every aspect from an employee standpoint, but the citizens wouldn't have gotten services they needed. So while our agency partners were hesitant at the time, they quickly saw the value in some of these advanced concepts and some of these things that maybe we've been using in a commercial world for a while around virtual Since implementing it in their agencies quickly became, you know, proven that it was the way to go going forward and to provide service to the citizens, we couldn't have done better without them.
John Breeden II: Wow, that's a great story. Thank you so much, john. So Nelson, we talked a lot about a lot of things that you're already doing there in Virginia in terms of digital services. So based on your experiences so far, Are there areas that you want to concentrate on in the future? What do you think the next step is for digital Citizen Services in Virginia?
Nelson Moe: Another really good question, you know, if I could predict the future, I think, our main focus to provide the flexible platform for the 65 agencies, and so they can continue to drive more citizen centric offerings. I mean, he says they're gonna want to, like to the panel members of a talk to talk ahead, they want a frictionless way to get to their kids in our government services. And our entire mission is centered around that particular experience that, again, make the agencies successful. And so we're looking forward to continued innovation and meet our customer needs as evolved, cost effective. And as they work their applications and our business to the government to citizen service.
John Breeden II: Appreciate that, Nelson. So Jim, working with emerging technologies in the city, like Raleigh, it must be really interesting, because it kind of lets you get really close to your citizens, I'm guessing that probably some of the services that you're rolling out are actually used by yourself. So that must be a good feeling. But looking at your city, how well do you think the digital Citizen Services are being deployed? And what are some of the critical areas that you want to address for Raleigh moving forward?
Jim Alberque: Yeah, so real quick, I think we're doing a pretty good job. But there's so much room for improvement. If you look at consumer grade technology, it is constantly driving public sector, we're excited about a couple of things, reducing some of the friction. I think some of the previous speakers talked about that just looking at the overall user experiences and how they interact with services. But then on the emerging technology side, extracting technology to just improve citizens lives through things like computer vision, IoT machine learning, where maybe they're not interacting with the technology, but just getting the benefits from it.
John Breeden II: That makes a lot of sense. So Michael, it looks like you get the last word today. Maryland, by most accounts, is doing very well with its digital Citizen Services initiatives. So my final question to you is, if other state, local or even city governments want to follow your lead, what advice can you give them about where to get started? And what kind of programs they should maybe try to tackle first?
Michael Leahy: Super, thanks, john. First, don't focus on programs focus on culture and governance. For example, here in Maryland, we're working on how we're going to utilize tools to build identity for our citizens that deals with privacy, as well as analytics, as well as the capacity for them to use it with private entities as well as the government, that it will be available across the state platform. So by looking at what the basic underlying tools are, you find what programmatic themes you can address. Second, and most important, you know, we talked about how we all talk together in government, but we're all in bureaucracies, government tends to be risk adverse. So although we talk to each other, it's also great, as some of my colleagues have said, to talk to the private sector, because none of them want to be the first to adopt a technology. But in state government, being the first adopter usually means that the industry has been using it for 10 years. So look there.
John Breeden II: That makes a lot of sense. And thank you for talking with me today, Michael, I really appreciate that. And thank you all for talking with me about this fascinating topic of digital Citizen Services. So for state and local governments. I learned an awful lot today, and I'm sure our audience did as well. Special thank you to Nelson, Fred, John, Jim and Michael, for joining us today to talk about this critically important topic.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. If you'd like more information on how Carahsoft can assist your state, municipality or county upgrade their legacy IT systems please visit www.carahsoft.com or email us at countoncarahsoft.com. Thanks again for listening and have a great day.