Capitol Comments

Digital Records Pose New Challenges

Digital records are presenting new challenges for state governments across the country.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers last week released a report exploring emerging trends in electronic records management, such as new Web 2.0 collaboration tools that create e-records in transitory forms yet still document the business of government. The research brief, “Ready for the Challenge? State CIOS and Electronic Records,” also explores the vulnerability of essential e-records during disasters and a growing emphasis on transparency and accountability in state government.

Also in regard to digital records, secretaries of state are facing the challenge of posting information online while protecting personal information of citizens. Secretaries of state in more than 20 states are redacting such personal information from Uniform Commercial Code filings as part of the process. Read about that effort in the 2008 Book of the States.

Longer Days, Shorter Weeks

High gas prices have lead to shorter workweeks for some state employees.

Several states are offering more of their public employees shorter workweeks. Utah instituted the most comprehensive plan: Gov. John Huntsman Jr. ordered about 17,000 state employees to work a 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. work schedule Mondays through Thursdays. That plan will begin the first week in August.

Other states—Florida, Kentucky and South Carolina—already offered the option of a compressed workweek, while other states—including Arkansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Vermont—are considering the addition of more state agencies to existing programs.

While shorter workweeks offer several benefits—such as traffic and emissions reduction, longer access to government services and energy conservation at state facilities—critics say the shorter weeks inconvenience the customers governments are required to serve and also burdens some state workers.

Read more about the plans at Stateline.org.

Revisiting Immigration in Oklahoma

Oklahoma Lawmaker Plans Follow-up to State Immigration Law

After Oklahoma’s House Bill 1804 was passed in 2007, the state immigration law became the center of multiple court cases challenging its constitutionality. And although some of those lawsuits were dismissed, other lawsuits are still pending.

Even though H.B. 1804 might strike some as controversial, the bill’s author, Oklahoma Rep. Randy Terrill, plans a follow-up legislative effort, building on 1804. He’s nicknamed the effort, “Son of 1804.”

The attorney turned college professor said as important as the bill was, “we have some unfinished business.”

CSG A Part of National Performance Management Commission

Representatives of nine leading state and local public interest associations—including The Council of State Governments—have joined forces to establish a commission charged with creating a national principles-based framework for public sector performance measurement and management. 

Although performance management has increasingly become a standard practice among state and local governments, there is no commonly accepted framework or set of guidelines.  The framework is intended to assist governments in designing new performance measurement and management systems and assessing their existing systems. 

CSG's Keon Chi Dies in Tragic Accident

The Council of State Governments is mourning the loss of Dr. Keon S. Chi, who died in a tragic traffic accident leaving work Wednesday, Jan. 9.

Dr. Chi was a nationally recognized expert on federalism and state government. He was a government and political science professor at nearby Georgetown College for 36 years.

Jo Griffith, executive assistant to the president at the college, told the Georgetown News-Graphic that Dr. Chi as a "was just a super individual and was loved by students and really supported the students."

Dr. Chi joined CSG in 1981 as a senior policy analyst and editor-in-chief of The Book of the States, the premier reference book on American state government published annual by CSG. He became a senior fellow in 1991.

After retiring from Georgetown College in 2006, Chi became director of CSG's National Center for State Governance. Before his death, Chi was organizing a workshop to be held in Lexington, Ky., May 29-June 1 where national experts on state government are expected to participate in a two-day workshop discussing transformation strategies for state governance and sharing political information about innovations that have worked in the states.

His wealth of knowledge, quick wit and sense of humor will be missed.

CSG Releases Report on State Medicaid Programs

Many state Medicaid programs spend almost 80 percent of their budgets treating individuals with chronic illness.

Some states are turning to disease management programs as a strategy to address cost and quality concerns, according to "Rural Medicaid Disease Management: Afterthought or Strategic Aim," a new report from The Council of State Governments. Disease management, which covers a range of activities designed to treat individuals with chronic illnesses, has been used in commercially insured populations to improve the quality of care and reduce costs associated with chronic disease.

CSG staff conducted a national survey of state programs to assess whether state Medicaid officials made any distinction in services provided to rural and urban residents, and whether the different needs of rural residents were addressed in program development and implementation.

States Can Get New Information on Mortgage Companies

Think your state should do more to monitor mortgage companies?

Now it can. The Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System, an online database, will help states in their efforts to regulate those companies. If a mortgage company is punished in one state for fraud or predatory lending, other states in which that company does business will soon know about it.

When firms apply to open in new states, they are notified about infractions in other states, and could use that information to deny the company a license.

Seven states – Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York and Rhode Island – are participating in the registry, which kicked off Jan. 2. Another eight states are set to join by July; and more than 35 states are expected to participate by the end of 2009. Plans call for the public to be able to use the portal to see a company’s state record.

For more information on this story, visit Stateline.org.

Former CSG Chair Dies at 83

Former Georgia House Speaker Tom Murphy died Dec. 17, nearly four years after suffering a major stroke. He was 83.

Murphy was first elected to Georgia’s House in 1960 and served nearly three decades as Georgia House leader from 1974 to 2002. He was the longest-serving state house speaker in the country before his election defeat in 2002. In 1990 he served as chair of The Council of State Governments.

States Strapped to Provide Low-Income Heating Assistance

Northeastern states are facing a difficult choice this winter: Increase the heating assistance benefit to adjust for higher energy prices and thereby reduce the number of households served or provide a smaller heating assistance benefit to a large number of homes. The key concern for the Eastern region is the rapid rise in heating oil prices.   

The Northeastern situation is unique. The Energy Information Administration has projected that prices in the Northeast for home heating oil could go as high as $1,879 this winter, about 25 percent higher than last year’s level.  In comparison, the price of natural gas, the other major heating fuel in the Northeast, is only expected to increase 9.1 percent. This is of particular concern to the Northeast, since the region uses 75 percent of the heating oil used in the nation.

Who Controls Cigarette Sales?

The U.S. Supreme Court today will hear a challenge to a Maine law that requires tobacco retailers who sell their products online to register with the state, use only authorized carriers to deliver their goods and clearly mark packages containing tobacco.

The court's decision could affect 40 state laws regulating Internet sales and shipment of everything from tobacco products to dangerous products such as explosives and wild animals. States believe their police powers - their ability to protect the public's healthy, safety and general welfare -- allow them to restrict how tobacco products are shipped and sold.

Delivery companies like UPS and FedEx say federal law puts the federal government in charge of package carriers. In fact, they say, the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 prohibits states from placing extra requirements on their services.

Find out more about this story at Stateline.org.