Pennsylvania Earns Technology Award

HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 4, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania has been recognized for outstanding achievement in state government information technology by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO).  The organization presented the award to the Department of Public Welfare during a ceremony last night at its annual conference.  

Each year, NASCIO recognizes states whose information technology initiatives exemplify best practices, support the public policy goals of state leaders, assist government officials in innovatively executing their duties and provide cost-effective service to citizens.  NASCIO received more than 100 nominations for consideration for this year's awards and presented awards in 10 categories.  

"I want to congratulate DPW's child support enforcement program for earning its second award in two years from NASCIO. The federal government has also ranked Pennsylvania as one of the top performers in the nation, resulting in $30 million in additional funding each year since 2009," said George White, the state's chief information officer.  "However, the most important thing is that we are helping to ensure that Pennsylvania's children get the support they need and deserve."

The Department of Public Welfare uses data exchanges to share information securely with financial institutions, employers, courts, health insurers and other state and federal agencies. The information provided through the exchanges can be used to locate parents, retrieve child support payments via income attachments, identify other financial assets available to meet support obligations and enforce child support court orders.

Use of the exchanges has helped Pennsylvania to increase child support collections and improve case management processes.  In 2009, Pennsylvania became the first and only state to meet or exceed all six performance measures used by the federal government to evaluate state child support enforcement programs.

The Office of Administration was selected as a runner-up for its efforts to virtualize servers at the state data center, which have resulted in savings of more than $36 million. Virtualization allows a server to run multiple applications simultaneously and share computing resources across them, as needed.  This greatly increases the amount of work a server can perform, thereby reducing the overall number of servers that are needed, as well as the associated floor space, power, cooling and maintenance costs.

To learn more about the NASCIO Awards and view all of the winners and finalists, visit http://www.nascio.org/awards/2011awards/.

Media contact: Dan Egan, 717-772-4237

SOURCE Pennsylvania Office of Administration

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