California continues to be among the leading states when it comes to using technology to improve government’s internal processes and better serve citizens, according to results from a nationwide survey released Tuesday.
Every two years, the Center for Digital Government (CDG), the research and advisory arm of e.Republic, evaluates each state government’s technology and assigns letter grades as part of the 2014 Digital States Survey.
[Editor’s Note: e.Republic is the parent company of Techwire and Government Technology magazine.]
California got a B+ this year after receiving an A- in 2012. Three states received an A grade this year as Michigan and Utah, two states that consistently score high on the survey, are now joined in the top echelon by Missouri, bumped up from a B+ grade in 2012.
Of the 50 states surveyed, 21 improved their grade since 2012, 17 states remained the same, and 12 states saw a drop.
In the map above, red signifies a grade in the A category; blue signifies a grade in the B category; and white signifies a grade in the C category.
California remains near the top on the strength of big IT projects and new service offerings.
More than a decade in the making, California’s massive statewide ERP system completed its first phase of deployment in July. The system — dubbed the Next Generation Financial Information System for California or Fi$Cal — is intended to streamline 2,500 legacy financial systems used by 124 departments. The state Office of Technology Services also launched a new private cloud offering this year to provide state and local government agencies with hosted infrastructure, platform and storage services.
California also is nearly done migrating to a new wide area network for the state executive branch called the California Government Enterprise Network (CGEN), and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is putting the finishing touches on a new data repository called the Strategic Offender Management System (SOMS). The California Department of Technology (CalTech) also recently created a Consulting and Planning Division to assist and consult on challenging IT projects, and has launched the the State Technology Approval Reform (STAR) project is an initiative to redesign the process for approving IT projects.
Go to govtech.com for more coverage on the 2014 Digital States Survey, including an interactive map of state-by-state grades and an infographic of the results.
