Federal, state CIOs recognize common goals

Federal and state chief information officers meeting together for the first

time vowed to forge a closer working relationship to solve common technology issues.

In last week's first joint meeting between the Federal CIO Council and

the National Association of State Information Resource Executives (NASIRE),

attendees said they want to parlay the relationship they established to fix

the Year 2000 problem into something more substantial.

"This is the first time we sat down with the federal CIOs to start a

dialogue," said Bradley Dugger, CIO for the state of Tennessee. "Y2K was a

model we felt we could build on."

But to make that happen, Dugger said there needs to be a formal

communication structure in place between federal and state CIOs.

As federal and state agencies move toward digital government, they are

faced with similar technology issues, including securing private data,

developing standards and building a seamless infrastructure to deliver

services, said Aldona Valicenti, Kentucky's CIO.

Some states and the Justice Department already are working on an initiative

to enable government criminal justice organizations to share information

electronically, Valicenti said.

"Where is it we help citizens most? How do we blend services?" she said.

"It's dumb to collect the same data two and three times. That's where

states

run into barriers."