Nutter proposes “unprecedented” $120 million IT budget, moves toward paperless

Mayor Nutter has announced plans to significantly invest in city information technology and pursue paperless government efficiencies in an attempt to improve tech infrastructure, cut costs and streamline city services.

“We may not be completely paperless, but we will use less paper,” Nutter said in his budget address to City Council this morning before a packed crowed that filled the historic Council chamber’s floor and balcony seating.

If City Council approves the budget, Nutter says that an “unprecedented” investment in city technology will provide $120 million to improve IT over the next five years, including $25 million in FY11.

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City Council bill would make IT permanent part of city government

Councilman Bill Green and five members of City Council have co-sponsored legisilation that would create a permanent Charter position for a Chief Information Officer and would consolidate all of the city’s Information Technology resources under the Division of Technology.

The legislation would require the CIO to report directly to the Mayor and to create an annual IT strategic plan that includes productivity enhancements to help the city utilize paperless services. It also gives the CIO more oversight over city department technology appropriations.

“When they wrote the Charter in 1952, no one imagined there could be a paperless system,” Green told Technically Philly during a telephone interview this morning. “[The legislation would] make investment in and continual upgrade of our technology a permanent part of city government.”

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Shop Talk: NPower PA ITWorks graduates first class

Last November, the trains that normally shot South in regular intervals on the Broad Street Line were at a standstill.

But as SEPTA’s transit workers—at strike over wage and pension issues—were busy on the picket lines, nothing was going to stop Eric Harper, bound to a wheelchair, from making it to class. Harper, living in North Philadelphia, trekked more than 40 blocks to Drexel University.

Harper is one of ten students that graced the stage at Drexel’s Mitchell Auditorium Tuesday morning to receive his diploma for ITWorks, an Information Technology job-training program for disadvantaged young adults. Harper is a member of the first graduating ITWorks class, a program put together by NPower PA, a nonprofit that does IT work for other local nonprofits.

Through a collaboration with the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, NPower helped identify a need for a cost-free training program to help young high school or equivalency graduates that were neither employed or seeking post-secondary education, whom were getting by on part-time work. It was as much an opportunity to to support the community and it was to support NPower’s partner organizations, who were seeking more hands in their IT departments.

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Report: Atlantic City government IT outsourcing “inefficient, ineffective”

Atlantic City doesn’t have a single city employee overseeing its IT infrastructure, resulting in “inefficient, ineffective and unsecure processes,” according to a report by the New Jersey state comptroller [PDF].

Since 2006, the city has outsourced its IT functions to Newark’s New Jersey Institute of Technology, paying $2.47 million over 4 years for services covering the city’s networked PCs, servers and desktop support, GovTech reports. The comptroller recommends that hiring two IT staff members could allow “substantial savings and a full-time dedicated staff available on a daily basis to serve all City departments.”

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State grants and local investment fund $300k into IT training

Information technology job training is coming for unskilled workers in Philadelphia.

More than $300,000 in state grants and matched local funding is being divvied out to training programs for tech support, Web design, programming, networking and a variety of IT vocations.

The grants and matching funds are a part of a larger investment of $760,000 in grants and $510,000 in matched funding for a total impact of $1.25 million, according to an announcement made last week by the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board.

The funds are being distributed to improve industry competitiveness and to address workforce needs in the region in logistics and transportation, advanced manufacturing, higher education and the allied health fields.

The most significant IT investments include Cheney University, with grants equaling $73,875, Pierce College, with $69,000 and Lincoln Tech, with $58,642.

“We know only 30 percent of the jobs in Philadelphia are unskilled, so this investment will play an integral role in keeping people employed and helping businesses to improve productivity,” Investment Board CEO Sallie A. Glickman said in a statement.

According to the organization, 70,000 workers have participated in the program since 2005, resulting in a 6.6 percent average wage increase.