Click here to see our full coverage of the 2024 Digital Counties Survey.
1st Jefferson County, Colo.
Jefferson County’s Enterprise Innovation and Know-how division embraces a philosophy of partnership, searching for to help and advance the federal government enterprise not simply in expertise, however in course of as effectively. That is evident in a lot of its work up to now 12 months, however nowhere extra clearly than in its new Enterprise Relationship Administration program: The division despatched out enterprise analysts to different places of work, enlisting most county departments and fascinating them within the creation of 80 concepts that at the moment are progressing into strategic initiatives. Equally, the Jeffco Innovation Lab has labored to teach county workers on strategies to eradicate course of ache factors, saving time and sources whereas enhancing service supply. In the meantime, specialised groups work with different departments to help within the creation of knowledge dashboards, functions and chatbots.
One main enterprise up to now 12 months was the improve of the Amanda case administration platform, which enabled the creation of the brand new Amanda Citizen Portal. The portal permits for data lookup — for constructing permits, planning and zoning, surroundings well being knowledge and retail meals inspections — in addition to direct service for allowing exercise corresponding to inspection scheduling, payment estimation and criticism submitting. The mission allowed for the retirement of a customized utility, migrated providers from on-premises to cloud and logs about 29,000 classes per thirty days.
On high of this core IT work and partnership philosophy, BIT has devoted time towards understanding the longer term, utilizing internships, fellowships and sources to ascertain AI protected utilization protocols for county staff, holding studying classes for greater than 200 staff to find out about generative AI and conducting a pilot mission to reveal the feasibility of biometric logins.
2nd Snohomish County, Wash.
Snohomish County, Wash., rises to second place in its inhabitants class this 12 months on the power of key finest practices and future planning, utilizing expertise to succeed in residents the place they’re and simplify complicated processes. Leaders launched an initiative that may consider and analyze residents’ digital expertise throughout environments, from net pages to social media, to generate a extra holistic strategy to providers. The IT strategic plan has been up to date to replicate this, with a objective set round resident expertise by way of an omni-channel strategy. Work is underway on a ground-up redesign for all 4 county web sites.
Officers prioritized innovation, securing $300,000 in particular funding to drive improvement of recent options. Launched in June 2023, the pilot Innovation Fund logged 17 requests for funding in 9 months, with greater than half yielding new options for essential enterprise wants as officers work to make the group aware of rising tech like Azure knowledge lakes, cell system administration, and using synthetic intelligence and machine studying options.
The county is working with the state IT company to face up a Safety Operations Heart. Officers additionally reconfigured Snohomish’s safety data and occasion administration device, freed up sources, and are mirroring the state in adopting a brand new resolution for prolonged menace detection and response.
Snohomish created and crammed a knowledge stewardship and privateness supervisor put up with oversight of all types of knowledge. Officers have additionally reinvigorated their Knowledge Governance Steering Committee, infusing it with three layers of oversight that features illustration from all departments. Execs allotted $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding towards enhancing digital fairness by enhancing broadband infrastructure. Plus, a broadband service hole evaluation is underway, and a Public Growth Authority is being created to spearhead protection improvement.
third New Fortress County, Del.
New Fortress County as soon as once more took third place in its inhabitants class for its continued excellence in utilizing expertise to enhance authorities providers. Upgrades to the county website improved accessibility, usability and efficiency, attaining WCAG2.2 compliance and an accessibility rating of 96 %. The county additionally carried out SeeClickFix for residents to report upkeep points at county parks. And in an effort to extend transparency and centralize providers, the county launched the Neighborhood Affiliation Portal as a one-stop store for governing paperwork and sources for frequent curiosity communities.
New Fortress County additionally earned its place among the many high finishers for efforts to enhance its cybersecurity posture. Multifactor authentication was carried out countywide in simply two months for all staff, contractors and distributors. Moreover, a brand new evaluation toolkit led to revised safety settings that improved endpoint lockdown on 1000’s of telework units from 36 % to 90 %. The county additionally performed tabletop workouts that resulted in improved plans and playbooks for incident response, in addition to constructing credibility and consciousness with management about tips on how to collaborate throughout a cyber assault.
Like many jurisdictions, New Fortress County has acknowledged the rising curiosity in synthetic intelligence and the necessity for presidency to contemplate tips on how to use it appropriately. The county is planning to work with stakeholders and county management to develop insurance policies to make sure accountable use of AI. Additionally it is in search of a high-value, low-risk alternative for an AI pilot mission to reveal the probabilities of this rising expertise.
third Westchester County, N.Y.
Westchester County, N.Y., climbed the ranks to 3rd place in its inhabitants class this 12 months due to the Division of Info Know-how’s (DoIT) continued dedication to enhancing digital fairness and exploring rising applied sciences.
In collaboration with Westchester County’s Workplace of Financial Growth, DoIT launched Join Westchester, which affords key digital sources, coaching and education schemes, and entry to reasonably priced Web to low-income residents. This system, established in October 2023, companions with numerous nonprofit organizations just like the STEM Alliance and the Westchester Library System to make all of it occur. The IT crew’s essential function in supporting this initiative brings Westchester County one step nearer to creating digital fairness a actuality for its residents.
With route from the county’s CIO and assistant CIO for governance, a brand new committee that focuses on all issues associated to rising expertise was established in June 2023. Made up of DoIT representatives and referred to as the Strategic Know-how Structure Roundtable (STAR), the committee drafted Westchester County’s first coverage on acceptable AI utilization. This is just one instance that displays the county’s dedication to utilizing new applied sciences in a accountable and clear means. STAR additionally up to date person interface requirements for the county’s functions and affords finest practices in areas like cell apps and person expertise. Past creating pointers, STAR exams and paperwork use instances of AI. Additional, the group explores rising expertise use instances for essential wants like fortifying cybersecurity.
4th DeKalb County, Ga.
DeKalb County, Ga., is making a cloud push, shifting functions like its public security and judicial methods administration to a software-as-a-service resolution. This spares IT workers from dealing with the upkeep and upgrades, makes budgeting extra predictable and reduces the necessity to handle, preserve and substitute loads of servers, databases and the like. The county requires new software program to be SaaS or vendor managed. To cut back third-party dangers, DeKalb seems for distributors who’ve FedRAMP or different resiliency certifications, and it additionally accomplished a vendor threat diversification evaluation to know the place its instruments and distributors might depend on the identical providers or infrastructure.
To raised safe staff’ units towards loss or improper entry, the county adopted a cell system administration system. All newly bought units now require staff to make use of face-based identification to unlock them and staff should reauthorize themselves after a interval of inactivity. Plus, units might be remotely wiped if misplaced. This 12 months, the county goals to conduct no less than one stay catastrophe restoration situation with manufacturing methods in a cloud surroundings. It additionally completed segmenting its networks, an vital cybersecurity measure.
DeKalb is utilizing new tech-enabled approaches to entice and retain extra IT employees. It adopted a brand new platform and workflows that speed up the hiring course of and assist with conducting inside fairness evaluations, which regularly result in elevating present staff’ salaries.
fifth Cobb County, Ga.
To extend their means to interact with the practically 772,000 residents of Cobb County, Ga., officers have launched using Sprout Social to reinforce neighborhood engagement skills. The county additionally revamped its 911 website to raised talk with residents, in addition to enhance its recruitment posture. Confronted with staffing shortages, the county’s redesigned web site goals to showcase its tradition, values and alternatives.
A 30-year-old knowledge middle was retired as Cobb County moved into a brand new facility, full with new applied sciences, enhancing resiliency, computing, storage and safety. The brand new knowledge middle will allow the county to develop its IT infrastructure — or shrink it — as extra functions migrate to the cloud. Third-party cost processors can now be discovered throughout a lot of the county’s on-line service platforms, enabling residents to buy bus passes, pay their water utility invoice and property taxes, and extra, saving time for each the residents and workers. Residents can even share footage from their residence video safety methods with the Cobb County Police Division by way of the Citizen Camera Registry program, a voluntary program the place regulation enforcement can request footage from residents when against the law happens within the space.
Distributors hoping to do enterprise with Cobb County have a brand new procurement system to work together with, generally known as the EProcurement and Contract Lifecycle Administration System, a totally digital and streamlined platform. An upcoming mission consists of AI-enabled expertise to assist in property assessments, eradicating a lot of guide steps within the valuation course of. The county’s cybersecurity construction has been enhanced with added multifactor authentication to incorporate delicate file and server entry.
sixth Macomb County, Mich.
Taking sixth place in its inhabitants class is Macomb County, Mich., whose strategic plan, created in 2018 and most not too long ago up to date earlier this 12 months, goals to prioritize enhancing digital authorities providers and cybersecurity. The county redesigned and launched its web site in November utilizing a Drupal 10 platform for improved search and repair performance. Internet visitors originating from search engines like google has elevated for the reason that new web site launch. And in October, the county began utilizing Workday for hiring; over 5,000 individuals have utilized for positions by the portal because it went stay, and greater than 200 new staff have been employed utilizing this modernized course of.
In 2023, Macomb County completed automating and digitizing its public works on-line portal, a mission begun in 2020. The platform permits a variety of individuals, from land builders to owners, to request and handle permits effectively. This workplace doesn’t shrink back from implementing expertise, together with the recent implementation of drones and AI.
In cybersecurity, the county launched a phishing consciousness marketing campaign in January 2023, aiming to supply instructional interactive workouts. Macomb additionally carried out a brand new catastrophe restoration plan in mid-2023.
seventh San Mateo County, Calif.
San Mateo County, Calif., is utilizing dashboards to spice up its on-line presence and enhance transparency. The county’s tech professionals have collaborated with the Division of Housing to create what officers name a collection of interactive dashboards that helps residents hold tabs on native reasonably priced housing — one of many key factors related to poverty avoidance and wealth accumulation. Since early 2023, the dashboard, which resides on the housing division’s web site, has attracted greater than 10,000 views, serving to to carry extra transparency to the problem whereas additionally figuring out the areas with the best want for reasonably priced and accessible residing quarters.
As that effort continues, the county is utilizing tech to raised tie collectively numerous departments.
Through its use of the GovDelivery platform, for example, San Mateo County has boosted communication amongst its workforce and constituents by way of electronic mail and textual content message, which in flip helps officers present faster updates on providers, neighborhood occasions and emergencies. The platform now has greater than 274,000 distinctive subscribers and affords greater than 100 subjects to an viewers unfold throughout all county departments. The interactions performed by way of such an effort additionally present priceless knowledge and insights to county officers as they proceed to suggest and work on coverage.
eighth Polk County, Fla.
In Polk County, Fla., the IT division is utilizing expertise to bridge the hole between innovation and resolution supply. For instance, within the final 12 months, the county has accomplished a mission emigrate its public-facing web site to a cloud supplier, permitting IT workers to deal with utility improvement and constructing an accessible, fashionable web site. Different notable efforts embrace making a extra clear, public-facing price range dashboard to enhance its general price range course of and piloting a mission to switch legacy PBX cellphone methods with a brand new call-center-as-a-service platform. The latter mission was a migration of all on-premises name facilities to a cloud-hosted resolution, leading to a collaboration between the Board of County Commissioners, tax collector’s workplace, sheriff’s workplace, state lawyer’s workplace, public defender’s workplace and the clerk of the courts.
Amongst its challenges, Polk County cites implementing state-mandated cybersecurity insurance policies and coaching together with understanding tips on how to govern cloud-based software program agreements successfully. To deal with the previous, the county not too long ago met with its present cyber insurance coverage supplier, threat administration division, lawyer’s workplace and IT leads for different constitutional places of work to raised perceive what roles these teams would play throughout a possible occasion and the way cyber insurance coverage protects the county altogether. Notable efforts in cloud computing governance embrace making a framework to offer a safe, supported operational surroundings for the county and including governance to the county’s strategic plan to raised execute software program agreements.
ninth Ventura County, Calif.
Ventura County, Calif., positioned ninth in its inhabitants class with a lot of big-lift IT initiatives. For starters, the Info Know-how Companies Division migrated from a legacy property tax system to a brand new, extra automated system. The division has additionally developed a web-based mapping utility for the Public Works Company, referred to as PWA GIS Viewer, which mixes greater than twenty years of spatial knowledge from a number of departments to trace watershed, sanitation, land improvement and extra.
Equally, the county has additionally carried out data-driven expertise in public security to establish identified drug offenders getting into county jails. The replace to the Ventura County Built-in Justice Info System (VCIJIS) utility permits jail workers to establish inmates that could possibly be smuggling medication into jail services whereas additionally serving to to stem the potential of inmate overdoses. In the identical spirit, knowledge mining and analytics capabilities constructed into the VCIJIS now permit officers to inform home violence victims of an offender’s deal with and/or neighborhood of residence.
IT Companies has additionally rolled out an answer to reinforce safety throughout workstations, servers and electronic mail methods, and endpoint safety has been added to all workstations and servers. Efforts to construct the primary leg of a countywide municipal broadband community are within the grant levels.
tenth Chester County, Pa.
In Chester County, Pa., the Division of Computing and Info Companies (DCIS) is difficult at work overcoming some staffing challenges whereas persevering with to ship robust digital providers for residents. DCIS cites its present workers struggling to adapt to new expertise and issue competing with the personal sector amongst its points. To that finish, the company is updating job descriptions and upskilling present workers, in addition to giving them new alternatives for innovation. They’ve additionally began outsourcing some duties they can not workers internally, like AI improvement and cybersecurity monitoring. To bridge some extra workforce gaps, the county courts shall be launching AI-powered kiosks in a number of places this summer season to offer customers entry to court-related data. DCIS additionally has two chatbot pilots, one for a assist desk database and one for the division of human sources, to assist staff discover details about advantages.
DCIS performs an vital function within the price range and procurement course of countywide, in order that they’re concerned in any expertise choices, which has helped with higher spending oversight and improved cost-effectiveness. An “ambassador” program polls county departments quarterly to establish challenges and the place tech options may also help, and DCIS management meets weekly with heads of all different companies to ensure priorities are aligned. A redesigned county web site is deliberate for 2024 with new branding, and efforts are underway to ensure all digital kinds are ADA-compliant.
Click here to see our full coverage of the 2024 Digital Counties Survey.
