Nominations Showcase Innovation and Excellence in State Government Technology
10/13/2021 3:30:26 PM
Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) is proud to announce that four of our projects were selected as finalists for 2021 the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) State IT Recognition Awards.
NASCIO selected 30 finalists across 10 categories for the projects and initiatives from NASCIO member states and territories. NASCIO members served as volunteer judges to review over 100 submissions, narrowing the nominees down to three finalists in each category.
The award nominations showcase innovation and excellence in the use of information technology in state government. Congratulations to these finalists in the 2021 State IT Recognition Awards!
Minnesota IT Services developed and implemented a new payment card industry (PCI) program to better protect the applications that need to process credits cards and to secure Minnesotans’ data. The programs and agencies that process credit card data in Minnesota’s executive branch, also known as merchants, processed over $2.5 billion worth of credit card transactions in 2020, allowing Minnesotans to renew their car tabs, register for campsites, apply for fishing and hunting licenses, pay taxes, and more. The PCI program assesses merchant PCI compliance with regulations, as well as industry best practices established by the state’s PCI program. As of June 2021, all 104 merchants in Minnesota’s executive branch are enrolled in the PCI program.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), MNIT, and Minnesota’s counties teamed up with Code for America to develop a human-centered benefits application to serve the people of Minnesota. The application, MNbenefits, combines cash, food, and health care applications into a single, streamlined application to simplify processes and get help to the state’s most at-risk individuals and families.
In its pilot phase, MNbenefits can be used to apply for SNAP (food assistance), cash assistance programs including Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) and General Assistance, Emergency Assistance, Group Residential Housing (housing support for seniors and persons with disabilities) and Child Care Assistance. It is also cell phone compatible and available in Spanish.
Almost 9,000 benefits applications, representing more than 15,000 people, have been submitted through MNbenefits.org by March 31, 2021. Before MNbenefits, it took about an hour to apply for benefits—now, the median time to completion is less than 12 minutes. This represents thousands of hours in saved time for people to date, valuable time that families can use to search for a new job, find stable housing or childcare, or any number of other things to take care of themselves.
The COVID-19 pandemic led many families in Minnesota to face food insecurity. On top of record unemployment, school closures meant that many families could no longer receive assistance through free and reduced meals options. In March 2020, the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act created the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program to provide food benefits to families with children who qualified for free and reduced meals at school, but who were not receiving those meals because school buildings had closed.
DHS had to quickly create a way for Minnesotans to learn about, apply for, and receive benefits distributed by the P-EBT program. In June 2020, DHS opened applications for P-EBT for the 2019-2020 school year, using a web-based application for individuals who needed to apply for the new program. To ensure that more families had access to federal and state P-EBT benefits, the Department of Human Services and MNIT used text messaging features to communicate with Minnesotans in a person-centered way. During that school year, more than 265,000 children received P-EBT benefits in the state, totaling $166 million in benefits. To prepare to launch the benefit for the 2020-2021 school year (in production on March 15, 2021) and improve communication even further, MNIT and DHS added a cloud-based call center to ensure that more Minnesotans understood the benefits and eligibility needs for P-EBT.
In 2020, Minnesota faced an unprecedented public health emergency that created economic uncertainty and restraints on physical movements and business operations intended to curb the spread of COVID-19. On March 13, Governor Tim Walz issued Executive Order (EO) 20-01, declaring a peacetime emergency, and EO 20-20, directing Minnesotans to Stay at Home, creating an immediate need to transition to remote work to keep state employees safe and able to continue providing the critical services that Minnesotans rely on. Everyone learned how to work and live in new ways.
The campaign to keep Minnesotans informed with current facts, data, guidance, and resources included the Stay Safe MN website, the COVID-19 response website, integrated AI (artificial intelligence) chatbots, the COVIDaware MN system, an exposure notification system for iPhones and Android phones, and COVIDaware MN.com. To date, over 1.6M Minnesotans have “opted-in” to the COVIDaware MN system.
The Watershed Health Assessment Framework (WHAF) is a structured, science-based approach to help resource professionals and citizens work together and grow our common understanding of Minnesota's complex natural resource systems.
The WHAF includes an interactive web-map application (WHAF 2.0) created by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and MNT, which brings together current data and scientific analysis and allows users to generate information about Minnesota's watersheds. These products are delivered in a transparent and repeatable framework to foster robust conversations and innovative approaches for improving the health of Minnesota's watersheds and communities.
The Minnesota Clean Water Council (created through the Clean Water Legacy Act) and Clean Water Fund partners have endorsed the WHAF 2.0 as a tool to be used by their staff for outreach and planning. In addition, there are nearly 3,000 WHAF newsletter subscribers, which indicates a strong user base of individuals that are interested in learning and understanding more about our lands and waters and in using this tool to drive action.
In the weeks prior to when Governor Tim Walz signed Executive Order 20-01 and marked the start of the state’s official COVID-19 response, Minnesota’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) system had already begun to see what the pandemic could have in store for Minnesotans.
The teams’ work ensured that the system performed without interruption during times of unprecedented demand. Throughout the pandemic, the UI system remained available 99.95% of the time. The state of Minnesota’s unemployment insurance system handled the increase in volume without sacrificing performance. From March 2020 through February 2021, UI paid over $9,800,000,000 to Minnesotans in benefits.
In 2020, Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and MNIT enhanced MnDOT’s agency-wide construction application, AASHTOWare, to significantly improve the business processes for internal and external partners, including streamlining processes and improving user experience.
MNIT promoted a customer-centered focus with this project, ensuring that we advanced the state’s ability to analyze and create value from digital services data to measure, improve, and support the important work that our MNDOT partners do on behalf of all Minnesotans.
MnDOT deployed multiple upgrades in 2020 to its 511 Traveler Information site to help travelers seamlessly access real-time information about road conditions, traffic incidents, weather information, and more. The system is visited by around 2 million Minnesotans and visitors per month, and up to 7 million people used it during winter storm season.
With the support of MNIT, MnDOT launched a web responsive design, a modified API, and streaming videos. MnDOT and MNIT also integrated automatic road condition reporting into the 511 application through an existing system, MnDOT Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS), providing timely information to the public and reducing the need for manual reporting.
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