THE MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE

Currently, in order to obtain public information, a citizen or state user would have to travel to each county courthouse and try to make sense of a computer system that houses the information, or manually look up information in books.

PEER surveyed seven counties and determined that there are different levels of access to public information. In some counties, the user can access all public information by computer. In other counties, computers can access no public information, or only limited information.

In each county, computer systems are used to manage information in various areas of county government operations. For example, some counties have voter registration information on the computer while other counties do not. Each county develops its own computer information system and chooses what information to include on these systems. The lack of uniformity in county information systems impedes the information accessibility. The user would need instruction on how to search the data.

In most county offices, instructions are not visible to help citizen users access data properly. In each county with computers available for public access, there is a search capability. However, the user may not be able to execute the search because of the difficulty of accessing the midrange computer system. The user must know the keystroke commands to access the search function for the selection of a record. Clerks are available in most offices, if users have questions on the search capability of the computer.

Of the counties surveyed by PEER, most had standard report formats; however, to use the report format, the user needed instruction. Also, of the seventeen county offices with public access computers surveyed, only eight computers had the capability to produce printed reports. The computer systems located in the counties are midrange computers, and keystrokes must be used to print information. However, to use the printer, PEER had to ask for assistance in a few offices in order to get the printer to work. In one office, the clerks did not know how to use the printer in the public access room, and had to ask another citizen user to show PEER how to use the printer. This was not the case in the majority of offices surveyed by PEER.

PEER identified ten counties that have county government web pages, as of April 2002, linked to the www.mississippi.gov website. These ten counties are: Coahoma, Forrest, Harrison, Hinds, Jackson, Lauderdale, Madison, Neshoba, Rankin, and Wayne. The information varies from how to pay taxes online, to a listing of county phone numbers. There are eleven counties providing online payment of vehicle and/or property taxes through two different e-government vendors, and five counties that offer public information online.

Agency efforts to implement state/local systems have met with limited success, largely dependent on the degree to which standards were mandated and enforceable and the quality of system design.

State law granted authority to the State Tax Commission to set standards and withhold homestead exemption receipts if a county did not comply. This initiative succeeded due to the involvement of the Central Data Processing Authority (predecessor of the MS Department of Information Technology Services) of the state.

In implementing its Automated Tax Roll Initiative in 2001, the State Tax Commission did not develop data format standards, which led to inaccessible information submitted by the counties. The State Tax Commission in 2002 developed and issued requirements for standard data formats to all counties.

The Office of the State Auditor is currently specifying data exchange media and setting standardized formats for the institution of paperless audits.

The Administrative Office of the Courts began implementation of a court tracking system for civil court cases in 1998. However, the system is not being utilized in all eighty-two counties because the system design was weak due to inherent software problems that required court officers to input information separately from existing systems and methods.

The Office of the Secretary of State, in 1998, attempted to complete the legislative mandated statewide voter registration record; however, because of the different formats used by the counties, the Office had difficulty with the conversion of the voter registration information. The Office compiled the voter registration record in 1999, but because of untimely processing and poor data quality, the record is of questionable accuracy and usefulness. The Legislature in 2002 provided the Office with the authorization to create a statewide computer system to create a statewide voter registration record.

Lack of uniform data and reporting standards as well as the disparity in county information systems led to implementation problems and difficulty in complying with the legislative mandate of a centralized statewide voter registration record.

In 2002, legislation created a qualified voter system to correct problems that the Office of the Secretary of State had encountered by allowing the procurement, implementation, and maintenance of an electronic information processing system and programs that are capable of maintaining a central database of registered voters.

Lack of coordination, collaboration, or communication across the state for development of GIS systems is causing a disjointed and duplicated effort statewide at potentially greater costs than necessary.

GIS is a computer system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating, and displaying geographically referenced information, i.e., data identified according to their locations. There are many different uses for GIS mapping systems. These uses include regional planning, building locations, and site conditions. For example, a community can use GIS information to determine where schools are located and link detailed information on that school (i.e., level of education, number of students, neighborhoods located in the school district).

Several state agencies and local governments are involved in independent initiatives to develop geographic information systems in Mississippi. Several study committees are involved in coordinating GIS initiatives, including the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Remote Sensing Technologies that was formed in May 2002. This Advisory Commission is to present recommendations to the Governor by November 2002 for the formation of a uniform clearinghouse of public remote sensing data, including a digital land base computer model of the state.

Since 1986 MARIS, the Mississippi Automated Resource Information System has worked to coordinate geographic information.

The MARIS Task Force is also working on the Geospatial Information Initiative (I-Team), which is a joint project of the Office of Management and Budget, the Federal Geographic Data Committee, individual states, and others.

The I-Team Initiative calls for each state to develop an I-Plan, which is a strategic plan that evaluates the status of existing data; identifies the most effective ways to collect, process, and use the data; determines how to build a statewide spatial data infrastructure; and sets a figure on the cost.

The Legislature passed legislation to create a council to oversee the development of a strategic plan for scientific information management. However, this legislation will repeal on July 1, 2002.

The Department of Environmental Quality’s 2001 legislative appropriation bill mandated that the agency develop a pilot Digital Earth Model for presentation to the Legislature to determine if this system would be useful as a statewide application.

There are many local government and private entities throughout the state developing independent systems and collecting GIS information. For example, private non-profit and for-profit vendors, including the Stennis Institute of Government, are working on development of GIS systems for counties.

MISS. CODE ANN. Section 25-58-1 grants approval authority to Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services for all local government geographic information system plans.

Currently, no state has coordinated or developed standards for state/local information systems to expedite access to county data. However, many states are working on the development of e-government, voter registration systems, and online court records access. These systems include standards that must be followed by local government entities.

Michigan instituted a Qualified Voter File in 1995 for implementation in 1997. Only election officials can access this file for the proper maintenance and service needed on the file of electors.

The TexasOnline Authority is the controlling body of the Texas e-government initiative. The Authority has local, state, and business representation developing a one-stop approach to Texas government.

Iowa developed an Online Court record system that allows the user to access court disposition information through the Internet.

Governing development and setting minimum standards for the creation and operation are important to the state because of the current duplication of effort that is occurring statewide on many different projects. To successfully implement such systems, several key issues of primary concern should be addressed by an assessment by a task force to determine:

• centralized oversight and coordination of the system; and,
• responsibility for developing policies and standards.

One of the major components of successful initiatives is strong sponsorship by executive levels. As major stakeholders in the success of state/local information systems, executive officials and legislators within state and county government must have interest and leadership in this area. This could be realized by forming a standing sub-committee of the Electronic Government Oversight Committee, created in 2001, to focus on county e-government implementation.

The Department should be vested with authority and responsibility over the development, administration, and coordination of all state/local information systems. The Statewide Task Force should develop recommendations and plan for the implementation of all state/local information systems in accordance with Task Force policy and standards. The Department should provide staff support to the Statewide Task Force.

The Department of Information Technology Services should be vested with the authority to carry out all recommendations and plans as developed by the Task Force. All state agencies that are creating state/local information systems should be required to work with the Task Force in the development of the system and utilize the expertise located within the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services.

The information system plan should include all relevant parts of public access information to the citizen and the state user, including county public access records, voter registration, and geographic information systems. Currently, in order to obtain information a citizen or state user would have to travel to each county courthouse and decipher a computer system or manual books to obtain public information. The new system would provide information in a standard format across all eighty-two counties and be developed by the state users as well as the county clerks who collect this information.

The Task Force should include the agencies that are represented in the state/local information systems, including but not limited to the Administrative Office of the Courts, Office of the Secretary of State, State Tax Commission, Office of the State Auditor, Information Technology Services, Department of Environmental Quality, and MARIS. It also should have representation from local governments, and include representatives from county government such as designates from the Chancery Clerks Association, Circuit Clerks Association, Assessor and Collectors Association, and the Mississippi Association of Supervisors. Also, there should be two non-voting legislative representatives to serve in an advisory capacity to the Task Force.

The Task Force should conduct a needs assessment in order to determine the direction and focus of the system design and development efforts. This assessment should encompass state, local, and user needs. This report should be presented to the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services for implementation of a statewide coordinated state/local information system initiative. Areas that should be considered are:

• telecommunication coordination;
• organization alternatives;
• funding alternatives;
• identification of potential areas of development;
• comparisons of agency and local agency initiatives to avoid duplication;
• identification of ways to minimize costs; and,
• development of polices and standards for the system.

The Task Force should determine what areas users feel should be included in the state/local information system. The users of the system, both local and state, should determine the potential areas of the development of this system. For example, users should be surveyed to determine their preferences for paying car tags, or looking up public information, or having geographic information available as an important function of the county or state. These potential development areas should be determined by the user, but could include geographic information systems, voter registration systems, and county court records. The Task Force should take into account federal standards that must be met, but it is important to involve the user to determine the development of a state/local information system.

Currently, state and local governments have implemented many different computer systems. At times these systems overlap. For example, the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) court tracking system was developed to meet certain requirements for the AOC. However, many counties had developed their own reporting system, and must now change their methods to adhere to AOC requirements. Another example is geographic information systems. Currently, there are many state agencies working to develop systems for their own needs, which encompass county data. These systems could be merged to have geographic information for the state that meets the needs of both county and state government without the duplication of effort.

The Task Force should identify ways to minimize the cost of the separate development of information systems by utilizing a universal information system that meets the information needs of the state and local governments. The Task Force should determine if economies of scale will work to accomplish a statewide information system rather than having independent development without coordination occur in the state at all levels of government.

One area that should be considered is a standardized telecommunication network for the counties. For example, many counties are using various Internet Service Providers in different county offices, rather than having a central Internet connection for the county. According to a study conducted by the Planning and Development Districts in 2000, Lee County had twelve Internet Service Providers.

If the counties were offered the opportunity to participate in a statewide telecommunications infrastructure similar to the statewide system developed by ITS for state agencies and universities, economies of scale could be realized. The state could develop a system that would meet the needs of an integrated statewide county information system.

Another area that should be determined is how the state will organize and develop a state/local information system. Therefore the Task Force should investigate and recommend organizational structures for the implementation of a successful state/local information system. Some methods that should be investigated include outsourced development, state development, or partnership development.

Outsource all or a portion of the development of state/local information system services. A vendor would provide all or a portion of the hardware, software, services, technical expertise, and oversight.

Allow the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services to be responsible for the development and maintenance of the state/local information system hardware, software, technical expertise, and oversight.

Develop a request for proposals that would be issued for a vendor with state/local information system development and operations expertise. The vendor would be under contract for a period of time to the leadership group or State, to assist in the development of a state/local information system infrastructure and application development model.

An important aspect of the Task Force will be to determine funding alternatives for a state/local information system. This could include coordination of monies currently being spent in different areas in order to complete the goal of development of a successful state/local information system. The Task Force should also investigate and recommend funding alternatives, such as appropriation funding or charging back to the user.

The Legislature would provide through direct appropriation, the funds to develop and implement a state/local information system. This could be carried out in many ways, including specific initiatives for purchasing hardware, software, and communication systems; allowing grants to be given for supplementing development costs; or providing tax incentives to the county and vendor in order to encourage participation from the counties.

The developer of the system, either the state or vendor, could bill the county or state agency for use of the system to recover the costs expended to develop the system.

Currently, there are many different state and local entities developing geographic information system data. Therefore the Legislature should clarify which is the guiding force behind geographic information system development. According to the MISS. CODE ANN. Section 57-23-13, the Mississippi Automated Resource Information System (MARIS) is vested with the authority to utilize the resources of Mississippi by making usable resource data and information more readily available and in a format that is consistent throughout state departments, agencies and institutions, and federal and privately generated resource data banks. In order to accomplish this, MARIS should receive all support necessary to achieve this goal, and should be the state data warehouse and facilitator for all geographic information systems, including county and local information. This geographic information should be up-to-date and include the latest geographic information available.

Currently, public information maintained by counties is not uniform. For example, the vendors of many county information systems have developed formats for the data stored in the system. This has caused the problem the Office of the Secretary of State has had with trying to reconcile voter registration records. While the Office of the Secretary of State may have this problem corrected by the passing of legislation in 2002, there are other areas that should be addressed. For example, there could be a universal format in all counties for the input of a name: first name, middle name, and last name; or a universal format for land records so that each county would have the same information in one format. This would ensure that duplication is not occurring in other areas.

The Task Force should determine if offering electronic government links to public information is necessary. This should include what information all counties should include on their web pages as well as what standards would be needed for the development of these web-based systems.

The Task Force should determine if counties should have a basic web page with county information to include: directory of elected officials, office information, addresses and phone numbers, as well as a link to an online database to include access to public information. This public information could include but is not limited to the following: General Index, Land Rolls, Judgment Roll, Estimated Tax Roll, Index to Federal Tax Liens, General Docket, Civil Docket, and the Criminal Docket.