While many of the issues listed above fall within the arena of specific government programs and therefore can be addressed within the context of the program areas, many of the problems facing government agencies involve the exchange of information across levels of government, different programs within government agencies, or between government agencies. For example, of the 36 proposals, submitted to CTG by New York State government agencies, 29 or over 80 percent involved service or communications opportunities crossing multiple agencies. Eighteen of the proposals focused on technology that would facilitate information flows across levels of government, 13 focused on improving communication flows between government agencies and non-government contracted service providers, and a total of 11 involved the communication between government agencies and citizens.

The uses of IT in government and therefore the issues of importance to program and information resource managers relate to all aspects of information flow: internal agency information flows, flows between government agencies and across levels of government, flows between agencies and citizens, the private and non-profit sectors. These types of cross-agency or cross-governmental IT projects are often the most difficult to design and implement effectively as there are often multiple stakeholders with different priorities and goals. Addressing these issues requires a robust communications infrastructure as well as coordination and cooperation across the boundaries of government.

In addition to those found in the CTG project database, a number of inter-program or inter-governmental information issues were identified from the other sources. Following is a list of cross-program/cross-government issues based on the preliminary findings:

• Cross-agency information integration
• Development of infrastructure and policies to support data and application sharing
• State infrastructure banks
• Data matching across agencies and programs
• Inter-relatedness of programs and information systems in the context of welfare reform
• Online systems to support eligibility determinations across programs
• Public-private partnerships
• Partnerships for education between local government, schools, and business

The New York State Forum for Information Resource Management’s annual meeting featured an agenda item on integration of information across agencies as well as an item on the development of key infrastructure and policies to support data and application sharing. The July issue of CIO Magazine featured an article on building and supporting government-wide IT infrastructure while the 1997 National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers conference discussed state infrastructure banks.

Several of the cross-agency or cross-program issues focus on the matching of data across agencies or programs. For example, the National Council of Human Service Administrators and Local Public Welfare Administrators presented conference sessions on the matching of prisoner and food stamp information in order to prevent the issuance of food stamps to individuals who are incarcerated. The same conference also featured a session on data matching to support child support collection as well as a session on Social Security Administration data exchange

As discussed above, the changing environment in health and human services, will require more effective communication between programs and levels of government. The American Public Welfare Association’s 1997 conference featured a presentation on the Inter-relatedness of programs and information systems in the context of welfare reform. Two additional presentations at the same conference focused on using IT technology to support eligibility determinations. One of the presentations focused on online systems for eligibility determination across programs while the other considered master client information systems to support eligibility determinations across programs.

Some of the issues raised by practitioners focus on the barriers to and benefits of partnering in IT projects. For example, The National Association of State Legislators’ 1997 agenda featured a presentation on cooperative project development while the International City/County Management Association’s 1997 conference featured presentations on public-private partnerships and partnerships for education between local government, schools, and business.