November 14, 2001

November 14, 2001

InforME Board Meeting

Members Present:

Secretary of State, Dan Gwadosky, Board Chair
Anne Schink
Jaynie Higgins
Rick Record
John Eldridge
Tamara Dukes
Deborah Carson
Cindy Butts
Dick Davies
Val Woods
Gary Nichols

Visitors:

Wayne Gallant, Department of Public Safety IS Manager
Shaye Robbins, InforME
Rebecca Wyke, Chief Deputy Secretary of State

Meeting Opens:

Welcomed Cindy Butts, Executive Director of the Maine Realtors Association, the newest member of the Board.� Introductions of all members of the InforME Board and visitors.

Agenda reviewed:

Review of General Managers Report:

Awards:� Continue to receive positive responses from the Center for Digital Government.� Maine received 2^nd place in Digital Government Survey.� Maine has also received 3^rd in Management and Administration, a comprehensive award for all state agencies and their web presence.� The Award for 3^rd place Best of Web was presented to Governor King in October.� Governor King praised InforME and the leadership of the Board.

Migration:� Every agency, except the State Legislature, is now hosted by InforME.� State Legislature has approved the SLA and will be hosted by InforME.� No date is currently set for the migration of the Legislative pages.

Adoption Rates of Services:
47% For Certificates of Existence
67%� UCC Search adoption rate in the first month.
2.2% Portland Parking Tickets Application

Web Design Projects:� Web Design is on fire!�

Disaster Recovery:� Technical Department is working on a back up system for disaster recovery for the State of Maine.� The new disaster recovery plan will cross state lines leveraging the relationship NEI has with the States of Rhode Island and New Hampshire.

Financials:� Even during difficult financial times InforME is seeing a strong use of the services.� Although numbers dipped slightly in Sept., we believe this was a temporary situation due to the events of Sept. 11th.� Regarding projections, it is difficult to keep up with our past growth rate, however we are pleased with our 2001 numbers for revenue and adoption.� Areas for new growth will lie in adoption, not in Batch or Bulk because these services are not marketed.� Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV), Interactive and Other will continue to grow.� Web design is a high possibility for growth as well.

Q: Do you have an industry curve as to what the percentages would look like?

A:� In the NIC portals BMV continues to be in excess of 80% of revenue. In a very mature portal the percentage may lower to 60%.� These numbers simply say that InforME has plenty of places to grow.

In other NIC portals, the top three areas of revenue growth are in BMV, Secretary of State (SOS) Corporate and UCC records, & Courts.

Rapid Renewal Service (RRS):

RRS update. RRS is growing with as many as 8 towns in beta testing and others interested in joining.� Currently we are trying to build the support systems of RRS to sustain growth regardless of how quickly it may grow.

Photograph:

Photo was taken of Board members for the 2001 Annual Report.

Department of Public Safety (DPS):

Review of the Department of Public Safety Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Discussion:� We made a few changes to the template, including adding language to make the SLA read �co-terminus with the Master and subject to any changes and adjustments in the master.��

Wayne Gallant, IS Manager for DPS, explained the DPS and the relationship to InforME.�� DPS covers Fire Marshal, Capitol Security, EMS, DEA, Justice Academy.� The SLA covers all services that are not statutorily covered by the Chief of the Maine State Police.� A new SLA will be executed for anything with the Maine State Police.� (Law states that non-sworn in official can be the head of the DPS whereas the Chief of the Maine State Police is always a sworn in official.)

Bureau of Liquor Enforcement (BLE):

Review of the Bureau of Liquor Enforcement SLA.�

Discussion:� The BLE is currently a General Fund agency without a continuous revenue fund.� The BLE project is a web-based service for the scheduling and reporting of wholesale liquor shipments to instate distributors and the payment of excise tax online.� BLE will be a fee-based service.

Q: This represents the first tax payment application for InforME.� Other NIC portals have done tax applications.� What should the price be for the transaction fee?� How shall we handle tax fees in the future?�

A:� Our statute states that we will not put fees on top of existing fees.� The fee needs to be taken from within existing fees.

Close to 100% instate participation is expected; there is a limited user group; this application will save the Department considerable time.� This application will integrate with TAMI.

Dick Davies moved to accept the SLA for the Bureau of Liquor Enforcement. Seconded by Gary Nichols.

SLA moved and unanimously approved by the Board.

Fee v. Free Services:

Discussion regarding fee v. free services.�

The number of free services in the queue has eclipsed the fee services, causing a fairly lengthy queue.

Dukes presents current queue and a definition of all applications currently on the queue.� We have identified and concluded most of the major revenue applications or agencies are currently re-working the back-end system and that will take time before InforME will work on these applications.

30 % or more of our services require programming.� InforME may be able to add a programmer to our web design services, as a result of an RFP with the State of Maine.� These Q3 projects tend to suffer as a result of no resources that we can put toward the smaller projects.

Project Prioritization Matrix:

Discussion of Project Prioritization Matrix.�

Board members suggest adding the number of Maine citizens and/or businesses an application effects, and how back-end reworking will affect timing.� InforME will re-visit the project prioritization matrix tool and bring to the Board at the next meeting.

InforME Subscription Fee:

Discussion of InforME subscription fee increase.

Discussion:� Some NIC states have $50 and others have $75.� $50 was appropriate at the beginning of the portal because the number of services are initially few.� Now with a cadre of services, the fee should increase to $75.� NIC is almost 50-50 between the two prices.� Utah started at the same time and stayed at $50.� Iowa is at $75 but has no limit on user names and passwords. We have added many special features and provide consistent support to our many users.

Board feels that a $25 increase is minimal.

Board votes unanimously to raise subscription fee to $75 per annum, beginning January 1, 2002.

Chair:

No meeting during the Month of December.

Next Meeting is set for January 16, 2002 at 1:00 PM.

No other Business is brought before the Board.

Meeting Adjourned:

2:57 PM