| FUND: GENERAL |
ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES |
Rob Richardson, Information System Director
The Information Systems Department supports all forms of information delivery for Racine County. The Department supports the technology, infrastructure and delivery of electronic, voice, print and mail services for the County. Support of Countywide public safety technology is a critical mission of the Department. The Department supports the E-Government technology that delivers web-based information and services for the public and internally for County staff.
The E-Government Committee continues to review Information Systems’ performance against the evaluation measures in the County Board’s E-Government strategy. These criteria have been used for the past few years in the Information Systems Department. The Committee continues to commend the Information Systems Department’s efforts in meeting the evaluation benchmarks.
In 2003, the Planned Services and Frequently Asked Questions sections were added to the County’s Internet site. The site can now be searched by the public, which meets an important ease of use component and makes the Internet site more customer-friendly. The internal Infonet site also continues to grow in features and function. The HR employee service site has become a very valuable tool for employees and is seen as a significant asset to the County’s operation. 2003 saw the implementation of the installation of E-recording for online property registration in the Register of Deeds Office. The Racine County implementation was only the 10th of its kind in the U.S.
The 2004 budget includes funding to continue to move the Infinium System to the County’s enterprise JD Edwards system. The goal is to move the major business functions to a single enterprise system similar to moves being done in private industry to reduce maintenance and support costs. This also creates a more efficient environment for system users who will only have one system to learn. The E-Government process identified the need to move as much of the County operation as possible to just a few enterprise applications.
There is a continued move to reduce the number of PC databases currently in use. The goal is to condense and streamline the remaining databases to increase their function and reduce the amount of redundant data entered. In areas where this has been done, it has simplified data entry and increased the value of data that is accessible from a single database.
We will continue our effort to web enable our AS/400 applications for internal use and provide more information from these applications on the Internet site. The actual progress of these projects will be dependent on the vendors who furnish the applications.
