In January 2000, Gov. Mike Huckabee flipped on his computer, logged onto the Internet and became the first Arkansas governor to open himself to constituents across the Web.
His staff cringed. Would people log on and participate? Is there a future for this thing called e-government? Arkansas, like many other states, has invested time and money in building its electronic infrastructure. Residents can pay state taxes, businesses can submit company filings and sportsmen can get hunting and fishing licenses -- all without getting into a car.
But are they?
Even as states invest millions of dollars in these online portals most people are not using them.
In Arkansas, for every person who renewed a car tag online in the past six months, 18 did it the old-fashioned way, by driving to the local state revenue office or mailing in the forms with payment.
Still, the state's Web site at www.accessarkansas.org offers -- or links to -- more than 180 services, and state officials plan to expand it.
In 2000, more than 800 people bombarded the governor with questions during that first online chat.
Three years later, state officials have a question for them. Are they willing to do more across the Web? Officials are banking on the answer being "yes."
Paying Taxes Online
David Foster, the state's income tax administrator, likes people who pay their taxes online. Problem is, there are not enough of them.
"It guarantees funds," Foster said. "We're not waiting on the mail."
From April 2002 to this past May, 1,145 people paid their taxes to the state either on the phone or online. But this is just a fraction of the 1.2 million individual tax returns filed annually. The number will only increase, Foster predicts.
The state has seen more online transactions in the past few years, but they still do not compare with the number of transactions done the old-fashioned way.
Hunting and fishing licenses are the most used part of the state Web site. Since June 2000, the state has sold 58,433 of these licenses online. They typically sell 10 million a year.
But the state does much more than just sell licenses and promote its own services on its Web site. It also touts the business ventures of Arkansas residents.
Like pecans? Barnhill Orchards in Lonoke sells pecans in the winter, blackberries in the spring and sweet corn during the summer.
Information about Barnhill or other Arkansas producers is one of the coolest, yet unknown, features of the state's Web site, according to the person who's in charge of it.
"We're trying to break down the levels of government and provide information about cities and counties in one place," said Janet Grard, network general manager of the Information Network of Arkansas.
The network is part of NIC Inc., based in Olathe, Kan. The company manages 18 state portals and boasts of processing 77 million online transactions in 2002.
The service is offered at no charge to the states. NIC makes its money by charging a fee on certain transactions. Renewing a nurse's license online might cost $42 instead of $40, for example, Grard said.
Twelve Arkansas Information Network staff members run the state's Web site from the 16th floor of the TCBY building in Little Rock. The capitol is seven blocks west of Grard's office. The servers that run the Web site hum in a closet.
People will use the site when they know about it, officials said. So, they've hired Gina Martin, a former TV reporter, to star in TV spots around the state. It's all part of an effort to get Arkansans to go to their computers, and not a state office, the next time they have to pay taxes, file papers, renew driver's licenses or anything else.
"The demand is there; we're getting the word out," Grard said.
e(volving)-government
Mark Struckman is the director of research for the Center for Digital Government in Folsom, Calif. The center started studying the Internet users' behavior five years ago to facilitate technology in government.
"The No. 1 thing people go online for is to check the weather," Struckman said in a telephone interview. "No. 2 is getting information on their government."
Arkansas first plugged into the Web in 1997 with basic services that listed constitutional officers and frequently asked questions. Officials have redesigned the site at least five times since, most recently this spring.
Information entered onto the Web by users is cheaper for the state than an employee typing the information in. There is less redundancy, fewer chances for errors, and, in the end, less bureaucracy.
"We have an era coming where we're going to reorganize governance," Struckman said.
But it will take some time, he said, estimating governments will start to see a return on building their Internet infrastructure in three to five years.
Arkansas' Office of Information Technology is slated to spend $2.4 million in the 2003-2004 budget year. The funding is down $1.5 million from the previous year.
Gary Underwood, the deputy chief information officer and security officer for the state, said that, although he cannot calculated it, he believes that Web-based transactions are making the state more efficient. Some state offices have been able to rotate personnel to other jobs, because of the Internet, he said.
Struckman said that real savings, however, are going to take time: "It's going to take getting people comfortable to use it."
That might prove difficult when roughly half of Americans say they have no need for the Internet.
More than 40 percent of Americans said they do not even go online, according to a report released in April by the Pew Center for Internet and American Life.
Those off-line are older Americans, blacks, Hispanics and rural Americans, the report says. Researchers telephoned 3,553 people during the survey last year. People cited pornography, credit card theft and fraud as reasons they don't go online, and the report says that 24 percent of Americans have no access to the Internet.
Less than one-third of Arkansans connect to the Internet at home, according to a 2000 report by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. About 1.04 million Arkansans own a computer, the report states, while 26.5 percent of the population is connected.
Getting It To Jell
Sure, officials could scrap together a passable Web site that didn't go much beyond the basic. But that's not good enough, Underwood said.
He compares Web sites to movies.
The movie is out of focus, the sound is off, "people would know when it didn't jell," the security officer said.
Officials report that the Web site, www.accessarkansas.org, was accessed 23 million times in 2000. The number was up to 43 million in 2001 and 57 million in 2002.
But even if Web-based transactions save money in the long run, the system is costing the state now.
Computer gurus spent a week fixing damage caused by a hacker who gained access to the state's system about a month ago. Tightening the security for the site will cost money at a time when state budgets are being cut.
The state's redesigned Web site includes a number of new services, like a geographic information system that allows users to gain information specific to where they live.
Grard hopes it pulls in hundreds of thousands of Arkansans who've never used the state site.
"We want it to be one-stop shopping for government services," Grard said.
Now all that's left is to get more than just the people who chatted with the governor three years ago to use it.
Quelle: The Morning News
