Today, the Federal Communications Committee’s (FCC) Emergency Access Advisory Committee (EAAC) held a meeting focused on possible text-to-911 solutions. The EAAC’s mission is to recommend policies to the FCC that will help ensure individuals with disabilities have equal access to emergency services as part of the migration to next generation 911. This includes the deaf and hard of hearing who cannot communicate with 911 operators through traditional aural means. This meeting acted as a follow-up to an exhibition fair of text-to-911 mobile solutions the committee hosted earlier in the week. While the purpose of the committee is to focus on helping those with disabilities contact 911 operators, the implications of decisions made about text-to-911 will be far-reaching, particularly as younger generations increasingly choose text messaging over voice calls.

As more locations roll out NG911-capable systems, text-to-911 will soon become commonplace. At the present time, however, very few locations have this capability, and even those that do warn that it is not always advisable to use it. Text-to-911 should only be used in circumstances when the caller is incapable of voice communication, such as kidnapping situations, when waiting for messages to be sent and received could be the difference between life and death. At present, there are also no government-established standards for text-to-911, and the government should move swiftly to enact them. Enacting standards that can be put in place across the country will ensure a uniform application of text-to-911 services, so that no matter where a user is, they will have the same ability to reach help when it is most needed. The lack of standards should not discourage vendors from continuing to develop text-to-911 solutions; however, it should be kept in mind that the specific form of the solution may require tweaking once standards are in place. 

Subscribers have full access to the Recap, here.

On Tuesday, the California Judicial Council decided to scrap the California Court Case Management (CCMS) project, which would have modernized the state’s trial courts by linking all 58 of them and making it easier and more efficient to access court documents. The project has been in the works for the past decade, but mounting criticism over its costs and a bleak economic outlook forced the Judicial Council’s hand. At the beginning of this massive initiative, the CCMS project was estimated to cost $260 million, but recent estimates now put it around $2 billion. The courts have already had hundreds of millions of dollars cut from their budgets over the past couple years, and continuing state budget woes make the situation worse. The state is now going to use the CCMS technology and the state’s investment in the project to assist the 58 trial courts with their failing case management systems.

It should come as no shock that another government IT project has come in over budget. A recent report notes that more than half of government IT projects nationwide come in over budget, late, or without proper functionality. This CCMS now joins the likes of the New York Statewide Wireless Network (SWN) and the New York City 911 system upgrade as a high-profile IT project failure. New York state entered into a $2 billion contract with M/A-COM only to terminate it after spending millions because of performance and financial issues. New York City is currently working on upgrading its 911 system, but similar to the CCMS project, the cost estimate has gone from $1.3 billion to $2.3 billion. The 911 system upgrade was also supposed to be finished four years ago, but now is not expected to be complete until 2015.  

Looking outward more government IT projects are bound to fail, but which ones?  It seems like larger projects have an increased chance of failure. They tend to more complex, have more players involved, and cost significant amounts of money making them extremely difficult to manage. Could the next big failed project be the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS)? It involves connecting over 80 agencies and will probably cost closer to a billion dollars when completed. Plus, it has already encountered severe problems that left the project in jeopardy. Will more problems ensue? Only time will tell.

• Application and Enrollment
• Plan Management
• Financial Management
• Consumer Assistance
• Communications

In an effort to increase transparency in public contracting, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber recently signed Senate Bill 1518 into law. The bill prohibits state agencies from accepting bids from vendors who were paid to help write the solicitation. The bill will also allow information about jobs created to be reported and used in determining awards. The Department of Administrative Services will also now have to report to the legislature about procurements that have been allowed to bypass competitive bidding rules. Deltek is currently tracking 31 contracting opportunities that could possibly be affected by this law.

The new law could pose an interesting dilemma considering vendors who help create the solicitation will not be able to bid on the project the solicitation is for. Therefore, vendors who provide consulting services and tangible technology products may be forced to pick one or the other when doing business with the state of Oregon. It should also be emphasized that this legislation applies only to paid assistance for developing a solicitation; any unpaid assistance does not disqualify the vendor.