Meeting Minutes

Thursday, February 28, 2007

At 1:08 pm the monthly InforME Board meeting was called to order by Chairperson, Dick Thompson. 

Those members present:  
Richard Thompson, Chair
Kathy Record
Anne Davis
John Forker
Linda Cohen
Dean Gwadosky
Barbie Redmond
John Martins
Anne Schink 
Herb Thomson

InforME Staff:
Todd Tolhurst
Erin Hutchins
Kelly Hokkanen 
Michelle Boivin
Tim Swan
Lesley McCaw
Kim Duplisea

OIT Staff: 
Paul Sandlin
Lisa Leahy

Others Present:
Representative Terri Hayes
I.	Adoption of January 24, 2008 and February 7, 2008 Meeting Minutes 

Action:
Motion to approve meeting minutes as presented:  Kathy Record
Second:  Barbie Redmond
Vote:  unanimous
II.	MIN Financials report Based on Board members’ past comments that the current monthly financial summary sheet is confusing, MIN has been working with OIT and OIT’s auditor on a simplified version of the report.  MIN shared a proposed new format for the monthly financial summary for the Board to review and provide feedback. The new format includes a couple of revisions compared to the document that was sent by email with Board materials.  We’ve added “other” under the COS section, which is bandwidth costs.  Discussion: Some Board members were concerned that receiving this page alone each month is not enough, because it would be very difficult to compare with previous months/ years. Erin informed the Board that she did have the 2007 year-end financials in the same format and can provide that to the Board. It was proposed that the new format be tried for a few months, but the monthly summaries will be included in the General Manager’s Report rather than separately each month. 
III.	Service Prioritizations- 
 MSECCA Total Solution-  InforME and MSECCA would like to work together to build an end-to-end electronic donation service that will include a new back-end database, account management system for federations/charities, account management system for donors, administrative site with reporting capabilities, and updated donation interface. This will be a time and materials project with an annual maintenance and hosting fee. In 2006, InforME built an online donation interface for MSECCA.  This interface allows all donors to fill out their donation form online regardless of payment type.  However, the current electronic system does not connect to the back-end database (Workplace Campaign Manager), which was created by a 3rd party vendor a number of years ago.  A complete solution would provide a single seamless service that will better serve both the users and the State, as all donations (online and paper) would be handled by this system.  InforME recommends that this project continue at a medium priority. The new system will allow the campaign to generate better returns with lower COS.  The MSECCA committee is made up entirely of volunteers and chaired by a different agency director each year.  The MSECCA committee currently pays a 3rd party administrator (MaineShare) to manage the annual campaign.  This total solution will provide increased efficiency to MSECCA, as the back-end database will be fully integrated with the online donation interface and the fully functional administrative site.  Therefore, the administrator (MaineShare) will no longer have to manually enter paper forms, as MSECCA team leaders will have the capability of entering their own departments’ paper donation forms as well as the ability to download their own department reports. 

In 2007 it cost $36000.00 for MaineShare to administer the program.  This new system should significantly reduce the work that MaineShare currently provides. MaineShare is supportive of this project.

Discussion: The Board expressed some concerns about putting additional work onto the MSECCA volunteers and that it may just be shifting costs from MaineShare to state employees. The question was also raised about whether a new back-end system could be provided through the administration contract – the contract with MaineShare will be ending soon. Barbie Redmond noted that in the past MaineShare has been the only bidder for this service, so there were not many options to obtain a new back-end system that way.

Action:
Motion to approve going forward with the project:  Barbie Redmond
Second:  Dean Corner
Vote:  7 approve; 2 negative 

PayPort Enterprise payments- This service is a proposed enterprise credit card payment solution for over-the-counter and telephone payments, for municipalities and state agencies. This is primarily driven by municipal interest, since the costs of obtaining a merchant account and PCI/DSS compliance make accepting credit card payments impossible for many municipalities. A similar service exists in Idaho and South Carolina, and these have been very successful. 

The web-based service will allow agencies to set up a variety of service types and fees, and then to process payments for those services through the application. Participating agencies will pay a transaction fee to the portal per completed credit card payment.  InforME recommends that this project continue at a High Priority.   

Discussion: Dick Thompson requested that this project be tabled, until further discussion with MIN can take place. He expressed some concerns about state agencies using this service with MIN’s merchant account, and needing to discuss this with the state Controller. 

Action:
Motion to table the prioritization:  Kathy Record
Second:  Linda Cohen
Vote:  unanimous

IV.	SLA- Maine Board of Medicine, Licensee Data Access-  This is for the service that the board prioritized a couple of months ago, allowing users to develop their own search criteria and download a data file of public information about MBLM licensees for mailing and other purposes.  The pricing proposed here is based off pricing for similar services in other states (AL).  

Action:
Motion to adopt:  Dan Gwadowsky
Second:  Linda Cohen
Vote:  unanimous 

V.	Discussion: Maine.gov Privacy Policy, esp. cookies-  One requirement of the RFP service management plan was for InforME to address traffic tracking and reporting for the portal and agency sites.  We recommended the use of a tool called Urchin, which allows the generation of traffic reports based on log files or tracking cookies.  The document we’ve provided discusses the benefits and risks of user tracking for the purposes of developing statistical reports.  

Discussion: The current Maine.gov Privacy Policy states that cookies are not used to track user activity on the site. This would need to be changed. The policy needs to be updated anyway, to be more clearly stated and because some state agencies are already using user tracking on their sites. The Board agreed that user tracking would provide significant benefit by giving better information on which to develop/improve website navigation, content, etc. The Board expressed concerns about public perception of using user tracking (tracking cookies) and how to educate users.

The Board agreed to convene a sub-group meeting to discuss a communication strategy, with the following Board members: 
·	Dean Corner
·	Dan Gwadosky
·	Dick Thompson
·	John Martins

Action:
Motion to revisit this item after workgroup discussion:  Dean Corner
Second:  Herb Thomson
Vote:  unanimous 

VI.	InforME/MIN Contract- Erin reported that negotiations were going well and should be done by the first week in March.  There are two items that are pending: 
·	Software license agreement
·	Termination of contract

Dick explained that once these two items have been resolved, there will be an interim Board meeting called to discuss and vote on the final contract.  The contract will be sent to the members of the Board.  

VII.	Other Business-
I.	2007 Annual Report -  These were distributed to the Legislature in January.
II.	2008 Marketing Plan – The MIN marketing team has developed an updated marketing plan for 2008, including tradeshows, award nominations, print materials, and other targeted strategies for online services. 
III.	2008 Portal Enhancements-  InforME has done a lot of brainstorming and developed a draft plan for this year’s portal improvements.  Dick Thompson suggested consideration of the following: 
·	Live Access – audio/video
·	More interactivity
·	Live Help – possibly expanding this to 24/7 availability; could OIT’s help desk assist with this?
·	Blogs and other communication tools that allow citizens to be part of the process.  

As an example of citizen interactivity, Erin mentioned that MIN is working with the Secretary of State’s Office to develop a rulemaking system that will allow agencies to complete the rulemaking process electronically and will include public comment and notifications.
VIII.	Next Meeting Dates Scheduled- 
·	March 27, 2007
·	April 24, 2008

Action:
Motion to adjourn:  Linda Cohen
Second:  Kathy Record
Vote:  unanimous