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Oregon Ethics' Filing System named Innovation of the Year by StateScoop 50The 2016 winners of the StateScoop 50 Awards, which highlight the best and brightest in the state IT community, announced their selection of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission Electronic Filing System for the Innovation of the Year Award. The Oregon Ethics' system transformed an entirely manual, paper-based process into an efficient, real-time, online system facilitating simple online filing of registrations, statements, and reports required of lobbyists, public officials and lobbyist clients. The system makes all this information accessible to the public in real-time. "By taking the time to test the system with the legislators and lobbyists who will actually use it, and by starting with a pilot group of users to work out any remaining kinks, we launched a proven, intuitive, usable online solution," explains Executive Director Ron Bersin. "Since launching, the system has accepted over 7,500 fillings. Before this system was in place, this would have represented approximately 4,000 hours of staff time to process all the paper involved." The Oregon Government Ethics Commission is tasked with ensuring accountability of public officials, candidates, lobbyists, lobbyists' clients, and legal expense trust funds to the public through Oregon's government ethics nd disclosure laws. These laws prohibit public officials from using office for financial gain, and require public disclosure of economic conflict of interest. The laws also require lobbyists and the entities they represent to register and report their expenditures. By moving an entirely paper-based process online, public officials, lobbyists, and lobbyist clients are now able to submit their registrations and reporting requirements more efficiently and completely. The service also provides real-time access to this data for members of the public. The Oregon Government Ethics Commission Electronic Filling System has risen to the Governor's task of increasing transparency of ethics laws compliance. The application was developed through Oregon's E-Government Program in partnership with NICUSA, OR Division, who is under contract to provide digital services. About the Oregon E-Government Program The Office of the State Chief Information Officer's E-Government Program was established through the Governor's Office Executive Order in 2001 and is administered by the Department of Administrative Services. The Oregon Legislature further supported the Program by enacting legislation in 2011 that established an Electronic Portal Advisory Board to advance the effectiveness and delivery of new online services to the public. The Program works with Oregon government organizations to enable them to conduct state business online and improve public access to government information. http://www.oregon.gov/epab Founded in 1992, NIC (NASDAQ: EGOV) is the nation's leading provider of innovative digital government solutions and secure payment processing, which help make government more accessible to everyone through technology. The family of NIC companies provides digital government solutions for more than 4,500 federal, state, and local agencies in the United States. Forbes has named NIC as one of the "100 Best Small Companies in America" six times and the company has been included four times on the Barron's 400 Index. Additional information is available at http://www.egov.com
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