E-SERVICES PROGRAM IN MISSOURI 

Missouri’s first e-government initiative got underway this past calendar year. This initiative will enable Missouri State Government to interact electronically with citizens, businesses and other governmental entities, thus creating the ability to pay taxes, renew motor vehicle licenses and professional registrations, make state park reservations, and a host of other activities via the World Wide Web.

Beginning in calendar year 2000, a State of Missouri e-government architecture study was conducted to provide a strategic analysis of the state’s current IT architecture and readiness for e-government.  Also, a State of Missouri E-Government Report and Plan, identifying specific agency applications that are candidates for e-government was created to serve as the basis for the FY02 appropriation request and a new E-Government Report and Plan detailing the FY03 appropriation request will soon be available. 

From the FY02 e-government appropriation request, OIT received a reduced amount of funding from its initial request. This amount enables OIT to begin to define the e-government architecture and standards, develop the infrastructure RFP, support the development of five pilot projects, create a portal prototype and begin to purchase the products and services necessary to implement the portal prototype prior to the end of FY02.

Currently submitted to the Office of Budget and Planning is an e-government FY03 appropriation request.  It is described within three categories with the intent to continue the development and implementation of an e-government solution in order to interact electronically with citizens, businesses and other governmental entities. Those categories consist of (1) the continuing development of an infrastructure and portal to provide simple access as a “single-point-of-contact”, (2) business-to-business (B2B), or government-to-business system to allow Missouri State Government to interact with vendors via the Internet, and (3) numerous agency web candidate applications that will provide services to citizens and businesses. Funding of this request will allow the State of Missouri to move forward in providing electronic services to businesses and citizens.