Louisville to spend M on expanding e-government services
Louisville, Kentucky, plans to spend $6 million to expand its IT infrastructure to more efficiently bring government services to its residents.
Its government is partnering with cloud services company Accela to update some of its e-government services as well as develop new ones, like a tracker that allows residents to monitor their service requests.
“As we evolve the city and grow and accommodate citizens in all the different ways that we do, providing them services, we need tools and resources inside the government to be able to provide those, so that’s why we’ve partnered with Accela … to overhaul some technology,” Jason Ballard, CIO of Louisville Metro, told StateScoop.
The Louisville-Jefferson County Metro government, which was established in 2003 when the city of Louisville merged with Jefferson County, has been working to replace several of its legacy systems. Almost two years ago, it launched a new government website and data portal.
The new web-based relationship management system, which will be available through the government’s site as well as via mobile apps, will allow residents to submit business license applications, schedule inspections or apply for other government services using a cloud-based platform.
Currently, the government uses a customer management system developed for the sewage department to provide some of these services, but Ballard says it doesn’t meet all of Louisville’s needs.
“We want to leverage technology in a different way, to be more citizen facing, more transparent,” Ballard said.
Ballard said Louisville offered Accela the contract after the company demonstrated it met cybersecurity guidelines set forth by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Federal Information Security Management Act. The company will launch the platform in September, and it’s expected to be fully functional 20 months later.
Maury Blackman, president of Accela, said in a press release that the new platform will allow workers in America’s 30th largest city to “complete tasks with greater accuracy and speed.” Ballard agreed that the system will allow the government to be more responsive.
“This is something that’s going to make our government more digital, less manual processes, and more efficient, more productive and a more agile and mobile workforce,” Ballard said.
