Four-pronged portal at service of Tarheels

North Carolina citizens, businesses and government employees will be able to access all state services through the state's new Internet site, called "North Carolina @ Your Service."

The still-developing site is distinctive in that it creates four portals, one each for citizens, businesses, employees, and state and local governments. Each section will open up to a page with the agencies needed for each. The site is www.ncgov.com.

"It will reduce the burden of the government, increase efficiency, and increase convenience for the citizens," said Ralph Campbell Jr., the state's auditor and the chairman of the Information Resource Management Commission.

Currently, three of the four portals, Citizen Central, Business Central and Employee Central, are online. The fourth, Local Government Central, should be online by September, and by then individual agencies should be linked to all the portals and will provide services online, Campbell said.

The 21-member commission, which oversees all technology projects in the state, wanted to streamline the state's bureaucracy so that residents could deal with all agencies together, Campbell said.

"The citizens know state government as state government, not separate agencies or sites," he said. "They want to be able to go into one state government site and be able to pull down information."

Businesses will also have the same opportunities, as procurement moves online too, he said.

The employee section provides information on health care, other benefits, regulations and other information employees need to know but couldn't access from a single site.

The local government section will allow local government employees to read about any benefits provided by the state and access information from state agencies they need to work with, Campbell said.

The information on the portals was provided by surveys conduced amongst each group that the service is provided for. "We're trying to make sure the users are getting the information that they desire" instead of what agencies want online, Campbell said.