Tom Viall, the general manager of RI.gov, says many Rhode Island residents don’t realize just how many services are offered on the state’s official Web site.
There are the old standbys, of course, such as hours of operation for the R.I. Division of Motor Vehicles’ offices or the full text of bills pending in the General Assembly. But Viall points out much more: Business owners can use RI.gov to pay taxes, submit filings and report quarterly wage figures. Boaters can register vessels and marinas can manage septic decals. College students can purchase dining plans and drivers can buy vanity plates.
In total, RI.gov offers more than 100 online services and a vast quantity of information spread out across more than 600 different Web pages. The Center for Digital Government took note earlier this year, and ranked RI.gov the fifth-best government Web site in the country. And last week, the R.I. Department of Business Regulation was honored by the National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council (eC3), which selected the DBR’s online liquor-label registration service to receive one of its annual Excellence Awards.
“People once relied on books, radio, periodicals and television for information,” Viall said. Today, he said, “state government needs to be where the people are, and that’s online.”
State governments are not the only ones finding new and inventive ways to harness the power of the Internet. It is also being used by everyone from President-elect Barack Obama – who is offering information on the transition between administrations online at Change.gov – to municipalities, some of which are matching their state counterparts in online ambition.
“In a lot of ways, I think we’re finishing the work we started in the mid-’90s,” said Paul Taylor, chief strategist at the Center for Digital Government, which tracks e-government trends from coast to coast.
After the dot-com bubble burst and state and local revenues declined, many government entities put their online efforts on the backburner, Taylor said. “But the Internet isn’t something where you can ‘set it and forget it,’” and now he is seeing a new emphasis on using the Internet to make government more streamlined and efficient, he said.
Another factor that has contributed to growth in e-government, according to Taylor, is the rise of Web 2.0, a term for the growing interactivity and two-way communication online.
There is certainly a strong demand for online government services, if RI.gov is any indication. In October, the Web site had nearly 2.2 million page views, compared to just 710,998 during the same month four years ago, according to internal figures. And those numbers do not include various departmental Web sites, such as dmv.ri.gov and dot.ri.gov, which are tracked separately.
Viall said turning to the Internet makes sense for governments in an era of tech-savvy citizens and public sector budget constraints. “Like many states across the country, Rhode Island is faced with increasing demands and fewer resources to meet those demands,” he said.
But to get a full sense of e-government’s possibilities, Taylor suggests people look west to Utah, which was ranked the most tech-savvy state in the nation in the Center for Digital Government’s 2008 Digital States Survey. (Despite RI.gov’s success, the State of Rhode Island did not make the survey’s Top 25.)
Perhaps the best testament to Utah.gov’s success came in June, when Gov. John Huntsman switched most state offices to a four-day work week, closing them on Fridays. Huntsman said the move, which was designed to reduce energy costs and carbon emissions, was only possible because more than 800 state government services are now available around the clock at Utah.gov.
“This is what the ATM did for the banking industry,” Taylor said at the time. “It reduced branch hours, but cash was still available. Ten years later, we’re reducing government office hours, but government’s still available.” •
The Center for Digital Government – a division of publishing, event and research company e.Republic Inc. – is a national research and advisory institute focusing on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. For more information, including the other winners of the CDG’s 2008 Best of the Web and Digital Government Achievement awards, visit www.CenterDigitalGov.com.
The National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council (eC3) is a governmental organization consisting of “thought leaders” from the public and private sectors who work to further discuss and create solutions for technology issues that impact the business of government. For additional information, visit www.ec3.org.
