Payrolls may have increased further had it not been for the significant number of layoffs of government workers. The continued layoffs are notable, California has been cutting positions for years and moving others to part-time only. As CivSource reported previously, the state has already laid off tens of thousands of people.

State payroll accounts for about $18 billion of the overall budget, a figure which successive governors have been trying to keep in check for decades. Forced furloughs were the most recent way Governors tried to save money. However, as state budget observers have noted recently, furloughs are only a temporary and largely ineffective budget solution.

According to McClatchy, the largest increases came at the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Motor Vehicles with state workers in those offices clearing salaries well above $500k.

Payroll increases are a double edge sword for states simultaneously looking for ways to cut the budget while fostering economic growth. The McClatchy account noted that the increases contributed, “$140 million in wages to the Sacramento economy in 2011, contributing to a budding recovery. Previous forced furloughs dampened much of the city’s economic activity. Despite this, state workers are being thrust into the limelight over high salaries during tough economic times. Public workers salaries are often the subject of criticism from those that dislike the idea of government jobs.

The bills will allow anyone to make an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request. Previously OPRA request were limited to state residents only. The bill also allows for requests to be made through means other than the existing OPRA form, provided that the request contains the required information and indicates that it is an official OPRA request. Finally, the bills expand OPRA responsibilities to auxiliary governmental organizations like the League of Municipalities. The state would also be allowed to email records, cutting the administrative costs of responding to requests.

Weinberg wants to bring OPRA into the digital age in order to make the state more responsive to modern modes of information transfer.

“In this day and age, if I submit an OPRA request on a cocktail napkin, so long as it contains the necessary information, that should be enough,” Weinberg said in a local press account. “The guarantee of transparency under OPRA shouldn’t stop at our borders, nor should it be dependent on pro forma mechanics.”

New Jersey officials have been sending mixed signals on transparency over the last few years. Governor Chris Christie ran on promises of increased state transparency but has done little to support that. As CivSource reported previously, the state comptroller released a report noting that less than 10% of state governmental entities were transparent. At the end of 2011, state lawmakers went further and pulled law enforcement payroll information off the Attorney General’s website.

The Wisconsin Rapids Tribune is reporting that thousands of dollars are already being spent state wide to simply provide facilities suitable for a special election. Additional data from TPM says that the overall cost for the recall could be $100 million or more in a mix of campaign spending and costs to taxpayers.

Municipal clerks throughout the state have explained that the net cost of the recall will depend on which date the recall is held and if potential Democratic rivals will have a primary. Holding both a special primary and special election will add significantly to the bottom line whereas a special election held in addition to an already scheduled election will keep costs low. Given the amount of outside money flooding into both Democratic and Republican war chests, a low cost solution is unlikely. Although the resulting budget damage may have serious ramifications.

The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board which is tasked with validating the signatures on recall petitions is also facing some steep pushback from signatories. Originally, the Government Accountability Board planned to post the names and addresses of those who signed petitions for recall online. However, residents that are victims of domestic violence or other attacks and those that would simply like their privacy are raising objections to posting this information online.

The Walker campaign was already given the signatures and now has 30 days to challenge their validity. 540,000 valid signatures are needed to force a recall. Recall supporters claim to have doubled that.

CivSource spoke with Kim Nelson, executive director for e-government at Microsoft, about LiveBallot an application that is part of the company’s DemocracyLive product which will provide online ballot access for residents of Florida and Virginia. The solution is already in place and since voting began for the Republican primary in December, over 1,200 Florida voters from 40 countries have accessed their ballot using LiveBallot, through an online web portal.

“Florida and Virginia submitted their applications on the basis of using LiveBallot,” Nelson explains. California was also awarded funds from DoD to use LiveBallot and will be opening their portal up for voting ahead of their primary in June.

The MOVE Act requires states to transmit validly-requested absentee ballots to overseas voters no later than 45 days before a federal election, when the request has been received by that date, except where the state has been granted an undue hardship waiver approved by the Department of Defense for that election.

LiveBallot gives states the ability to meet the requirements of the MOVE Act, by allowing citizens to access the portal, view and print their ballots. In the past, many overseas voters have not received an absentee ballot in time for it to be voted, returned, and counted. With LiveBallot, voters use unique identifying information to access their voter-specific ballot. Upon return, the signature on the ballot is matched with voter registration records to verify the voter’s identity.

“It’s important to note that LiveBallot only allows voters to view and print their ballots. This is not online voting,” Nelson explains. “Each state has their own requirements for how ballots may be returned and residents are made aware of that but it is important not to confuse this as an online voting mechanism.”

California, Florida and Virginia election officials received Federal Voter Assistance Program (FVAP) funding guaranteed by the MOVE Act to purchase the LiveBallot technology.

Under the terms of the bill, municipalities would be prevented from paying for communication networks with tax or government revenue or from subsidizing subscription prices. The bill also requires that local governments hold public hearings and a special election before becoming a broadband provider.

The special election requirement goes a step further than the North Carolina legislation of the same flavor. Three cities in Georgia, Tifton, Marietta, and Acworth currently provide publically funded broadband networks but, Rogers calls them unsuccessful and the government an unfair competitor to private business. He claims that the bill would “level the playing field.”

“The private sector is handling this exceptionally well,” Rogers said in an Associated Press account. “What they don’t need is for a governmental entity to come in and compete with them where these types of services already exist. We’re not outlawing a local government entity from doing this, but if they’re going to compete, they can play by the same rules and ask the voters if it’s okay before they go out and spend all these dollars.”

Rogers claims are dubious at best. According to the National Broadband Map, Georgia ranks 20th in the nation for broadband access. According to the forward of a report by Rich Calhoun, Program Director of the Georgia Technology Initiative, “As I traveled through the state to talk with leaders in municipalities, counties and community anchor institutions, I found that many places throughout Georgia indicated that they did not have access to affordable or sufficient broadband services. Telecommunications firms who have made significant investments in Georgia indicated that in some areas of the state the return on investment would not qualify for further investment at the present time.”

According to data in a previous CivSource piece on the state of municipal broadband, “just over 50 cities in the US have their own fiber networks and fewer than 100 have cable networks.”

However, incumbent broadband providers have a significant interest in ensuring that they are the only players in the broadband market, despite open unwillingness to build the infrastructure needed to foster a broadband economy in the United States. The requirements of the bill most notably – special elections – will erect high cost barriers to creating municipal broadband networks even for more affluent cities in the state. Ensuring that a market with little to no activity will go uninterrupted by communities attempting to provide needed infrastructure for themselves.

Rogers claims that these requirements only make governments “play by the same rules,” as the private sector. Although we are left to question when was the last time a private sector provider held a special election before it began an initiative or was barred from using or raising capital to start a project.

The vote came after weeks of protest from Democrats in the statehouse involving walk outs and amendments designed to slow down or derail the bill. However, after several days of protest, the Democrats eventually conceded and allowed the vote to go forward. The vote in the Senate will happen sometime late next week after what is expected to be several more days of protest from the public and Democratic lawmakers alike.

Just under half of states are right-to-work states. After the 2010 elections brought in a swath of anti-union Governors, several states – most notably Wisconsin and Ohio passed measures to strip union rights. The measures resulted in significant public backlash including successful recall elections in Wisconsin and a new recall action against the Governor.

However, some Governors, specifically Rick Snyder of Michigan have said publically that they do not think pushing right-to-work is worth the fights seen in other states. Snyder has said that while he sides with those pushing legislation, he doesn’t think it makes sense to push at this juncture. Indiana, is home to some of the strongest union forces in the country and they are expected to use this time between votes to press hard on derailing the measure in the Senate.

In Rochester, the Rochester Police department will use advanced analytics software from IBM to mine, share and extract intelligence from critical data in order to improve police investigative and prevention programs. Law enforcement will then be able to identify local “hot spots,” and allocate resources in advance.

The application, IBM InfoSphere Identity Insight, provides users with specific data from existing law enforcement and public safety databases to aid in investigations and prevention. “The technology will allow law enforcement officials to see broad patterns about activity in their city and focus on prevention,” Cleverley explains.

In Las Vegas, police there will use IBM’s COPLINK crime analytics software, a product already in place in more than 3,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide. COPLINK allows officers to accelerate their investigations by enabling them to make non-obvious connections based on information that was previously spread across the department. COPLINK will also allow the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to forge information sharing agreements with other law enforcement agencies that already use COPLINK inside and outside Nevada.

Las Vegas police were already using parts of the i2 crime analytics software from IBM – the broader suite which includes COPLINK, giving the department a more comprehensive crime analytics platform.

IBM is working to provide a broad spectrum of analytics solutions for cities Cleverley said. Last year, CivSource reported on another predictive analytics solution used by the Memphis police department. “All of these tools fit along the spectrum of analytics capabilities,” Cleverley said. “You can leverage analytics in a variety of different ways depending on the desired data and outcomes. Each city is using the tools in slightly different ways based on what makes sense for them.”

Cleverley noted that these types of applications can also help make the case for projects like the Public Safety Broadband Network. By giving law enforcement the infrastructure to handle data transfer, and communications at higher speeds throughout more locations officials will also see an improved user experience with applications like COPLINK.

“These tools can really help with the investigation process. For example, witnesses often recant in the hours after reporting a crime. What if law enforcement officials could replay a 911 call for the witness at the first visit, or show them some of the information they already have? It could save time, and strengthen the overall investigation process,” Cleverley said.

IBM has put together a YouTube video that demonstrates COPLINK’s capabilities here.

Public safety and law enforcement officials have been calling for a public safety broadband network for years. Now, they may be closer than ever to having it created. The network has support from the Obama administration and Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), are sponsoring a bill that would get the project off the ground after several roadblocks.

However, Governor’s O’Malley and Mead are raising concerns about the level of involvement from state level officials in the network. State level first responders would be the primary users of the network. In a letter to the Senators sponsoring the bill, the Governors note that the governing body for the network should have the majority of seats filled by state level officials for this reason. That would mean a change to the current language of the bill.

The letter cautions against too much federal power in the bill which would be “a federal intrusion into state and local zoning authority.”

The Governors also want to ensure that any spectrum reallocation or project work is signed off on by state officials so that any existing projects and investments will not be impacted. Reallocating that spectrum to other uses would waste “billions of dollars of taxpayer investments,” the letter said.

Maryland’s business development office has come under criticism recently for its lack of transparency. In response to that, they have released Maryland Finance Tracker which will let business owners see what financial incentives are available to them when they add new jobs or open new facilities.

There is also an interactive map – MDbizMap which shows visitors market data for their area of the state including employers, schools, local tax credits, and other incentives. Additional resources are expected to come online over the next several months.

The tools follow the release of the state’s first sustainable growth plan and several other interactive online tools designed to help residents and increase transparency. Governor O’Malley has made these types of initiatives central to his administration in effort to upgrade state government’s overall service delivery.

Governor Synder is calling for spending now before infrastructure conditions deteriorate further. In 2011, several transportation officials and the Brookings Institution held a one day summit to outline several of these same issues. Shortly after that event, Snyder indicated that he would be working to ensure that rail projects throughout the state keep moving forward.

Around the same time, the Governor proposed a New International Trade Crossing bridge between Detroit and Windsor which was blocked in the state Senate. He used this morning’s speech to reiterate the need for a second span and asked for help from local business leaders to build support for the project.

Tonight, Synder will hold an online town hall meeting to give Michigan residents a change to weigh in on the bridge, his infrastructure plan and other issues outlined his recent State of the State address.

They can post questions to Snyder’s Facebook page, on www.michigan.gov/townhall or on Twitter @onetoughnerd using the hashtag #AskGovSnyder.