Government Technology - December 2008 - (Page 16)

Every year, certain IT projects stand out for being particularly bold or innovative. The following ﬁve examples showcase what can be accomplished even when demands are high and resources are few. ANDY OPSAHL | FEATURES EDITOR M OST OF THE PROJECTS highlighted here were selected because they involved strategies many state and local governments are still deciding whether or not to try. Industry observers are watching for the success or failure of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration’s (FSSA) attempt to outsource food stamp eligibility. All states are seeking ways to cut Medicaid costs, making Tennessee’s Medicaid fraud analytics process critical to watch. Most state and local governments are investigating best practices for redacting Social Security numbers from online public documents. The Richmond (Va.) Police Department’s (RPD) crime-predicting system will certainly lead to clones elsewhere Kind Fiveof-a- Stephen Hollifield, information systems manager for the RPD. Hollifield uses SPSS Predictive Enterprise Services to run the analytics. The system tries to improve its accuracy each week by automatically creating a new crime-predicting algorithm and testing it against the one used the previous week. Hollifield calls this the “champion-challenger” process. At the end of each week, the analytics tool uses the crime information collected to create a new “challenger” algorithm; the existing algorithm is the “champion.” The analytics system applies the challenger algorithm to crime records from the past five years, and it tests how accurate the challenger would have been at predicting the crimes that actually happened. If the challenger algorithm would have been more accurate than the champion algorithm, then the challenger becomes the new champion Your Favorite Stories The most popular stories on govtech.com for 2008. if it further reduces crime, and the District of Columbia’s “stock portfolio” approach to IT project management is already making waves. A Step Ahead of Crime DURING 2008, many government IT observers took special notice of an analytics-based tool for predicting crimes that the RPD developed. The system, which gives police a color-coded map showing where crime is likely to be most intense, features a new function for 2008 that classifies the crime it measures into six categories — burglary, robbery, auto theft, theft from auto, violent crime and other larceny. “If you’re predicting increased robbery activity versus auto theft or a burglary, we have different tactics to prevent those types of crimes,” said ESRI Founder Jack Dangermond Predicts the Future of GIS Site Reveals Salaries of New York State Employees, Other State Financial Data American ITIL Web-Based Mapping Tools Help Governments Transform GIS Into New Services Microstamping Can Help Police Match Guns to Shell Casings, Study Finds California State Workers Protest Salary Database Publication 911 Systems Upgrade to Accept Text Messages and Video AT&T to Include Lower-Income Households in Fiber-Optic Rollout Chicago Fusion Center Gives Police New Criminal Investigation Tools DHS Announces Significant Changes in 2008 Grant Guidelines DEC_08 16 http://www.govtech.com http://www.govtech.com http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - December 2008

Government Technology - December 2008 Contents Point of View Four Questions for... On the Scene Big Picture Year in Review Who Controls Your Network? Paper Makes a Comeback Halting Meth Abuse Spectrum Up Close signal:noise Digital Communities Contents Becoming a Digital Community Rethinking 700 MHz Smart Grids: Powering the Future Gearing Up for Crime 2.0 Software Predicts Crime Local Portals on the Red Carpet More Than Just a Pretty Face

Government Technology - December 2008

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