Digital Government

OMB: E-commerce striding forward

Agencies are making progress in using electronic commerce to improve the way they purchase goods and services, but challenges lie ahead, according to a longawaited Office of Management and Budget report released this month. According to the report, 'Electronic Purchasing and Payment in the Federal

Digital Government

Disaster maps put online

In an effort to provide the public with more information to prepare for natural disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency last month added an electronic mapping feature to one of its educational programs. The public can access the electronic maps on the World Wide Web to view the history o

Digital Government

Justice report scolds INS over automation programs

Immigration and Naturalization Service officials have not adequately managed programs for automating the agency's business processes, according to a blunt report from the Justice Department's inspector general. The report, released earlier this month, criticizes INS for failing to manage its major

Digital Government

Missouri launches teacher training

Missouri has launched the nation's first statewide initiative to raise computer skills for teachers, students and other members of the work force through certification in the Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) program.

Digital Government

Maryland School Employs Silent Watch to Monitor Students' Computer Use

School administrators and business owners now have a new tool that enables them to ensure that computers are being used for their designed purposes.

Digital Government

GAO Report Finds Only Two Major Cities Y2K-Ready

Boston and Dallas are the only two major cities in the country that are Year2000 compliant, according to a General Accounting Office report released Thursday.

Digital Government

GSA makes last awards for security services pact

The Federal Technology Service's Office of Information Security has awarded the last of its Program Safeguard contracts for information security services and last week awarded the first task order under the program.

Digital Government

FBI turns on new crime-fighting system

FBI officials announced today that they have successfully rolled out a massive new computer system that state and local law enforcement officials will use to fight crime.

Digital Government

GSA floats outsourcing option for financial, admin services

The General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service today announced it is pursuing the idea of allowing small and midsize agencies to use a new GSA center to buy financial and administrative management services through a seat managementstyle contract.

Digital Government

Hill, Indians slam Interior's trust fund system

Senators, trust fund experts and American Indians today blasted an Interior Department plan to spend as much as $60 million on a new computer system to improve the collection, tracking and disbursement of money from the Indian trust fund program.

Digital Government

San Jose Heads List of Top 10 Tech Cities

Silicon Valley's San Jose, Calif., is the nation's hightech industry leader, according to a survey that ranked hundreds of metropolitan areas by the number of hightech firms they contain.

Digital Government

Washington Names Acting CIO

Washington Gov. Gary Locke named Clare Donahue, chief deputy director of the state's Department of Information Services (DIS), as acting director of the department. The appointment was made while the state completes a search to replace CIO Steve Kolodney, who left the job last month.

Digital Government

Portland Puts City Code and Charter Online

Portland citizens now have online access to their city's nearly 3,000page city code and its city charter after the mayor and city auditor completed a threeyear project to transfer the documents to the Internet.

Digital Government

White House asks Hill for more IT research funding

President Clinton's top technology adviser told a House committee today that Congress must beef up funding for federal information technology research and development programs.

Digital Government

Florida County Rejects AT& T Proposal

Officials in Broward County, Fla., which includes the city of Fort Lauderdale, rejected a bid by AT&T owned local companies to become exclusive providers of Internet service in the area.

Digital Government

Commerce Department Calls for More IT Help in American Indian Communities

A U.S. Commerce Department agency has called on the federal government to take the lead in assisting American Indian communities to meet their information technology needs.

Digital Government

Vendors abuse IT to steal from Medicare

Medicare contractors have used technology to steal from the federal health care program despite a responsibility to help fight fraud, waste and abuse, according to a report that the General Accounting Office released today.

Digital Government

Army awards $248 million ID contract

The Army awarded a $248 million contract Tuesday to Symbol Technologies Inc. to field and deploy a wide range of automatic identification devices including bar code readers, magnetic stripe cards and radio frequency tags to track supplies and parts for Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine users worldwide.

Digital Government

Gore and Reno Announce Report on Crime-Mapping Technology

Vice President Al Gore and U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno released a report this week on how the federal government could improve how state and local communities and law enforcement officials use information technology tools to reduce and prevent crime.

Digital Government

NAACP and AT& T Partner to Help Bridge 'Digital Divide'

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and AT&T Co. have teamed to create technology centers in six cities that will provide computer training and Internet seminars to help lessen what organizers say is a racial ravine in technology usage.