The strategy calls on offices and agencies to focus technology initiatives on three key areas:

• Enable the American people and an increasingly mobile workforce to access high-quality digital government information and services anywhere, anytime, on any device.
• Ensure that as the government adjusts to this new digital world, we seize the opportunity to procure and manage devices, applications, and data in smart, secure and affordable ways.
• Unlock the power of government data to spur innovation across our Nation and improve the quality of services for the American people.

The strategy was created from the work of two federal working groups- the Mobility Strategy and Web Reform Task Forces. These groups worked with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and General Services Administration (GSA) to conduct current state research and explore solutions for the future of government digital services. Feedback was also incorporated from citizens and federal workers across the nation through online town halls which recorded combined total of 570 ideas and nearly 2,000 comments.

In his directive, the President outlined his goals for the strategy – “the Strategy will enable more efficient and coordinated digital service delivery by requiring agencies to establish specific, measurable goals for delivering better digital services; encouraging agencies to deliver information in new ways that fully utilize the power and potential of mobile and web-based technologies; ensuring the safe and secure delivery and use of digital services to protect information and privacy; requiring agencies to establish central online resources for outside developers and to adopt new standards for making applicable Government information open and machine-readable by default; aggregating agencies’ online resource pages for developers in a centralized catalogue on www.Data.gov; and requiring agencies to use web performance analytics and customer satisfaction measurement tools on all “.gov” websites.”

Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel and federal CTO Todd Park gave a presentation outlining the strategy in detail at Tech Crunch’s Disrupt NY 2012 conference in New York City, where they said that the administration will stop issuing the .gov domain immediately.

The men also said that agencies will start offering APIs of public data. Other projects will include the launch of a Digital Innovation Center and a streamlined RFP process.

In the report, the organization considered each provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and examined potential economic impact. “On net, this analysis suggests that upon full implementation in California, the Affordable Care Act will have a positive impact on California’s economy with variation across regions based largely on their socioeconomic makeup. Full implementation of the Affordable Care Act as compared to the non-reform scenario in 2010 would have resulted in 98,861 new jobs in California (a 0.6% increase in total employment) and $4.4 billion in additional gross state output,” report authors write.

Report data shows that Southern California alone would see a 0.7% increase in the number of people with jobs – working out to just under 60,000 people added to the labor force. Adding $3 billion to the local economy.

Report authors note that the law and the funding it provides would essentially be a force mulitplier adding positively to the health care sector and helping to mitigate some of the potentially negative economic effects health care would have as a sector if it remains unchanged.

Several states brought a challenge to the Supreme Court over the individual mandate provision in the ACA. BACEI notes in the report that this provision is likely to be a key job creator and will also improve the productivity of people already with jobs if they now have access to health care.

“The presence of the individual mandate will also be one factor that changes the set of incentives that exists for individuals in ways that will influence their behavior. The individual mandate may, for example, increase the value that people place on employer-sponsored insurance. And in an environment with a greater proportion of the population being insured, in part due to the individual mandate, there will also be greater labor force participation. Also, to the extent that people are employed, the implication is that there will be less time away from work or out of the labor force for reasons related to health,” the report says.

In a press event in Utah yesterday, Governor Gary R. Herbert detailed the state’s response to the breach including a full-scale independent audit of technology security systems and the appointment of a new technology director. Local law enforcement is also conducting a separate investigation.

The security audit will be conducted by Deloitte.

“The State of Utah must restore the trust placed in it,” the Governor said. “Cyber-security is the modern battlefront and we are all enlisted—you, me, our state agencies, the Legislature—all of us have a critical role to play,” he added.

The Governor made a public apology to citizens effected by the breach including 500,000 individuals who had less sensitive information stored on the compromised server.

“The compromise of even one person’s private information is a completely unacceptable breach of trust,” said the Governor. “The people of Utah rightly believe that their government will protect them, their families and their personal data. As a state government, we failed to honor that commitment. For that, as your Governor and as a Utahn, I am deeply sorry.”

According to law enforcement authorities, cyber attacks on public information systems have increased 600% this year, resulting in nearly a million attempts daily by cyber terrorists or hackers to infiltrate the State IT network.

The Governor is appointing Sheila Walsh-McDonald as the new Health Data Security Ombudsman. She will oversee individual case management, credit counseling and public outreach.

The Governor also announced the resignation of Stephen Fletcher, executive director of the Dept. of Technology Services (DTS), and the subsequent appointment of 28-year IT veteran Mark Van Orden as acting director of DTS.

Earlier iterations of Maine’s website won awards for innovative design and the new changes build on that tradition. Users will be able to renew licenses, gain agency contact information or see state alerts. The state is also introducing text message and email alerts from state agencies for things ranging from weather alerts to road construction.

The new search feature has been upgraded to provide more relevant results and easier to navigate result listings. The website will also show trending topics and posts from Maine’s various government social media accounts.

“Combining innovative design with user-friendly navigation, Maine.gov is a site for the people. It provides transparency and efficiency,” said Governor Lepage.

Additionally, multiple state agencies are working to improve department websites. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has launched a redesigned website that projects a more accessible, approachable and assistance-oriented agency.

The first bill Senate Bill 2576, will amend the state’s existing Workers Compensation Act, to require employees to provide more evidence that an injury was work related before claiming the benefit. If an employee is found to be on drugs or alcohol at the time of the injury they will risk losing their benefits all together if they file a workers compensation claim under the new rules.

The second bill S.B. 2934, will give businesses a larger tax credit when they pay their inventory taxes each year. The tax credit will increase each year over the next three years.

The third bill H.B. 1537 creates zones of tax incentives spread throughout the state. These zones will provide health care focused businesses with tax credits for bringing their companies to these areas.

The package of legislation covers a large portion of the Governor’s “works” agenda. Critics of the agenda have said that it will make it more difficult for workers to receive due compensation if injured on the job while additional tax incentives will take money away from an already tight state budget.

Earlier this year, West Virginia faced hard scrutiny from federal officials over its broadband plan. The state applied for federal broadband funding to expand a statewide network through anchor institutions such as hospitals and schools but had to revise the plan after learning that many of the institutions originally included in the application already had broadband. Local officials then submitted a revised plan to bring sites without broadband online and get the project back on track which was approved. Since then, critics of the project have been poised waiting for any missteps.

When Frontier’s work is complete over 400 schools will have broadband although state officials have raised concerns about some of the equipment including routers which cost north of $20,000 each.

Frontier is only responsible for laying fiber lines but questions about costs raised during the meeting show that some state officials remain unconvinced that the project is going well. West Virginia was given $126 million in federal stimulus dollars to build the network.

Governor Sandoval opened the SALT Conference this morning, a global conference of financial, business and political leaders getting under way this week in Las Vegas, Nevada with an overview of the economic activity in his state and what his administration will be working for in the near term. He spoke to improvements in the local economy,including improvements in the housing crisis that has been a persistent drag on the local economy since 2008.

He also announced an aggressive agenda to make the state the most business friendly state in the economy. The state is in the process of eliminating hundreds of regulations and refocusing revenue generation through sales tax and the collection of interstate sales taxes. The Governor has been outspoken in his support for interstate sales tax agreements, like the agreement his state just struck with Amazon to get the taxes on goods purchased by Nevada residents on the website.

These agreements are key for the state which has a limited tax structure that is likely to remain in place. “I am proud to say that Nevada has no corporate or personal income tax,” Sandoval said resulting in loud applause from the audience.

The Governor also announced he will be making the first international trade mission of his tenure later this year. He will be going to China and other areas in Asia in order to “increase Nevada’s global footprint.”

Last year, Chillicothe, Ohio was given an early innovation grant from the federal government for its broadband expansion plan. Since then, Governor Kasich has made statewide broadband expansion a central priority of his administration, by launching the 100gbps expansion plan.

At an event in February, the Governor highlighted his plan to create a state of the art medical education and health care corridor over the network. Touting the network’s potential benefits including job creation, economic development and improved educational opportunities for Ohioans. Yesterday, the cities of Portsmouth and Wooster announced that they now will join Akron, Athens and Youngstown as hubs for Phase II development of the broadband network. The two cities are agricultural hubs and will add that economic sector to the network mix.

“This is the new gold standard for technology and information sharing, and we want to ensure that the entire state benefits from its potential,” Governor Kasich said.

The Ohio Controlling Board approved today the $3.1 million state investment in this latest broadband enhancement. Additionally, the state will offer assistance to 33 of Ohio’s four-year public and private and two-year community and technical institutions to contract with vendors to upgrade their last-mile connections to the network backbone. Phase I of the development will connect Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo by September 2012. Phase II will be complete by the end of the year.

The 100 Gbps network will connect OARnet to Internet2 through connection points at the northern and southern ends of the state. Internet2, a nationwide advanced networking consortium, spans U.S. and international institutions that are leaders in the worlds of research, academia, industry and government.

Thirteen Iowa institutions and organizations applied to serve as regional STEM network hubs, which will physically house the coordinating centers and their network hub managers.  A review panel selected by the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council Executive Committee recommended the six finalists to Branstad, who accepted the recommendations without changes.

The six hubs are:

Northwest hub – Iowa Lakes Community College
Northeast hub – University of Northern Iowa
North central hub – Iowa State University
Southwest hub – Southwestern Community College
Southeast hub  – University of Iowa & Kirkwood Community College
South central hub  – Drake University
 

“These six regional STEM network hubs will be the driving force offering Iowa youngsters more opportunities to learn about STEM, which will better prepare them to someday consider STEM careers,” Branstad said. “STEM fields are among the fastest-growing, with many jobs that pay well.”

The initial investment of $620 million in the second year of the State’s current biennium will allow Oregon’s new care organizations to coordinate care for Medicaid patients while reducing preventable errors. Oregon estimates that this will achieve $11 billion in savings over the next decade.

Currently, there are 600,000 medicaid patients that would be effected by the coordinated care program. Oregon has also received federal funding for its cooperative health care program, through the Affordable Care Act. The state is also moving forward on a health insurance exchange despite a court challenge of federal health care reform.

“With unprecedented collaboration between local communities, health care providers and our federal partners, Oregon is on the right track to create a system that will both improve care and reduce costs,” said Governor Kitzhaber in a statement.