Approved:       February 12, 2007      

Date

MINUTES OF THE HOUSE GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Jim Morrison at 3:39 P.M. on February 8, 2007, in Room 526-S of the Capitol.

All members were present except Representatives Holland, Sloan, Wilk, and Tafanelli, all of whom were excused.

Committee staff present:

Mary Galligan, Kansas Legislative Research

Tatiana Lin, Kansas Legislative Research

Renae Jefferies, Office of Revisor of Statutes

Gary Deeter, Committee Assistant

Conferees appearing before the committee:

Bob Mackey, Director, Division of Accounts and Reports, Kansas Department of Administration

Tracy Smith, General Manager, Kansas.gov (Kansas Information Consortium)

Others attending:

See attached list.

The Chair announced that the Committee now has two taxpayer transparency bills to consider: HB 2207 and HB 2457.

The chair resumed the hearing on HB 2207 - the taxpayers transparency act.

Bob Mackey, Director, Division of Accounts and Reports, Kansas Department of Administration, reviewed concerns of the Division regarding the bill (Attachment 1). He stated that STARS (Statewide Accounting and Reporting System) is inadequate to meet the reporting requirements of the bill, and the volume of accessible data envisioned by the bill could not be met in the mandated time frame.

Members discussed the impact of the bill with Mr. Mackey. Answering questions, he said creating the interfaces with STARS and the process of converting information into useable data would be costly. Martin Eckhardt, Manager, Central Accounting Services, replied to a question that if a request for information falls within the Open Records Act, the Division will search records to provide the requested data. He noted that his office keeps detailed transactions for 16 weeks, after which records are sent to storage.

Jeff Glendening, Vice President of Political Affairs, Kansas Chamber of Commerce, provided written testimony regarding the bill (Attachment 2).

Karl Peterjohn, a conferee from the previous day, commented that as technology explodes, agencies must move away from hierarchical structures toward decentralized, distributive systems.

The Chair introduced Tracy Smith, General Manager for the Kansas Information Consortium (KIC), which provides the state portal (Kansas.gov) for the Informational Network of Kansas, and DiAnna Wages, KIC Director of Creative Services, who fielded questions from the Committee. Ms. Smith said KIC, as the Kansas portal, hosts about 190 sites and provides links to those agencies that create their own websites. She stated that each agency develops its own website and that there are no uniform standards for agency websites. She said Kansas.gov offers restricted search capabilities through a limited contract with Google; she noted that the portal has no criteria for indexing, but does offer a variety of search techniques, although building a robust search engine would add complexity to the process. Ms. Smith provided Attachment 3 to illustrate the services of Kansas.gov.

In discussing search capabilities, a member cautioned about spending funds needlessly for expanded search capacity. Another member, expressing frustration about the non-intuitive search procedure of Kansas.gov, suggested the need for a simpler, centralized system.

Duncan Friend, a conferee from the previous day, responded to a question about the proposed statewide Financial Management System (FMS), saying FMS is designed to collect more information, but its scope does not include making data accessible to the public, since it is focused on internal state business.

Ms. Smith replied to another question, saying that with a powerful search engine and proper data preparation, it would be possible to type in a word or phrase and, with one click, get to the desired data; she added that such a capability would take extensive work and added resources. Ms. Wages said presently key-word search is limited.

A member commented that the difficulty and cost of building a comprehensive search engine and providing readily available data should not deter the Committee from moving toward that goal.

The Chair, referencing page 60 of the December 2006 issue of Government Technology, noted that Kansas government, which 6 years ago was ranked #1 in digital prowess, is currently ranked #19; he lamented that Kansas, which invented digital government, is now falling behind.

Another member stated that the responsibility of the Committee is to envision where the digital state should be in five years and begin moving toward that goal. Agreeing, another member suggested 2020 as a year from which to create a vision and work back in measurable steps to create a road map. Another member suggested developing a set of criteria by which to measure progress. Members discussed what span of information is needed. A member reminded the Committee that HB 2207 (and a new bill referred to the Committee, HB 2457) focus primarily on easy access to budget information. The Chair agreed.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:48 p.m. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 12, 2007.