In a press event in Utah yesterday, Governor Gary R. Herbert detailed the state’s response to the breach including a full-scale independent audit of technology security systems and the appointment of a new technology director. Local law enforcement is also conducting a separate investigation.

The security audit will be conducted by Deloitte.

“The State of Utah must restore the trust placed in it,” the Governor said. “Cyber-security is the modern battlefront and we are all enlisted—you, me, our state agencies, the Legislature—all of us have a critical role to play,” he added.

The Governor made a public apology to citizens effected by the breach including 500,000 individuals who had less sensitive information stored on the compromised server.

“The compromise of even one person’s private information is a completely unacceptable breach of trust,” said the Governor. “The people of Utah rightly believe that their government will protect them, their families and their personal data. As a state government, we failed to honor that commitment. For that, as your Governor and as a Utahn, I am deeply sorry.”

According to law enforcement authorities, cyber attacks on public information systems have increased 600% this year, resulting in nearly a million attempts daily by cyber terrorists or hackers to infiltrate the State IT network.

The Governor is appointing Sheila Walsh-McDonald as the new Health Data Security Ombudsman. She will oversee individual case management, credit counseling and public outreach.

The Governor also announced the resignation of Stephen Fletcher, executive director of the Dept. of Technology Services (DTS), and the subsequent appointment of 28-year IT veteran Mark Van Orden as acting director of DTS.

Earlier iterations of Maine’s website won awards for innovative design and the new changes build on that tradition. Users will be able to renew licenses, gain agency contact information or see state alerts. The state is also introducing text message and email alerts from state agencies for things ranging from weather alerts to road construction.

The new search feature has been upgraded to provide more relevant results and easier to navigate result listings. The website will also show trending topics and posts from Maine’s various government social media accounts.

“Combining innovative design with user-friendly navigation, Maine.gov is a site for the people. It provides transparency and efficiency,” said Governor Lepage.

Additionally, multiple state agencies are working to improve department websites. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has launched a redesigned website that projects a more accessible, approachable and assistance-oriented agency.

The first bill Senate Bill 2576, will amend the state’s existing Workers Compensation Act, to require employees to provide more evidence that an injury was work related before claiming the benefit. If an employee is found to be on drugs or alcohol at the time of the injury they will risk losing their benefits all together if they file a workers compensation claim under the new rules.

The second bill S.B. 2934, will give businesses a larger tax credit when they pay their inventory taxes each year. The tax credit will increase each year over the next three years.

The third bill H.B. 1537 creates zones of tax incentives spread throughout the state. These zones will provide health care focused businesses with tax credits for bringing their companies to these areas.

The package of legislation covers a large portion of the Governor’s “works” agenda. Critics of the agenda have said that it will make it more difficult for workers to receive due compensation if injured on the job while additional tax incentives will take money away from an already tight state budget.

Earlier this year, West Virginia faced hard scrutiny from federal officials over its broadband plan. The state applied for federal broadband funding to expand a statewide network through anchor institutions such as hospitals and schools but had to revise the plan after learning that many of the institutions originally included in the application already had broadband. Local officials then submitted a revised plan to bring sites without broadband online and get the project back on track which was approved. Since then, critics of the project have been poised waiting for any missteps.

When Frontier’s work is complete over 400 schools will have broadband although state officials have raised concerns about some of the equipment including routers which cost north of $20,000 each.

Frontier is only responsible for laying fiber lines but questions about costs raised during the meeting show that some state officials remain unconvinced that the project is going well. West Virginia was given $126 million in federal stimulus dollars to build the network.

Governor Sandoval opened the SALT Conference this morning, a global conference of financial, business and political leaders getting under way this week in Las Vegas, Nevada with an overview of the economic activity in his state and what his administration will be working for in the near term. He spoke to improvements in the local economy,including improvements in the housing crisis that has been a persistent drag on the local economy since 2008.

He also announced an aggressive agenda to make the state the most business friendly state in the economy. The state is in the process of eliminating hundreds of regulations and refocusing revenue generation through sales tax and the collection of interstate sales taxes. The Governor has been outspoken in his support for interstate sales tax agreements, like the agreement his state just struck with Amazon to get the taxes on goods purchased by Nevada residents on the website.

These agreements are key for the state which has a limited tax structure that is likely to remain in place. “I am proud to say that Nevada has no corporate or personal income tax,” Sandoval said resulting in loud applause from the audience.

The Governor also announced he will be making the first international trade mission of his tenure later this year. He will be going to China and other areas in Asia in order to “increase Nevada’s global footprint.”

Last year, Chillicothe, Ohio was given an early innovation grant from the federal government for its broadband expansion plan. Since then, Governor Kasich has made statewide broadband expansion a central priority of his administration, by launching the 100gbps expansion plan.

At an event in February, the Governor highlighted his plan to create a state of the art medical education and health care corridor over the network. Touting the network’s potential benefits including job creation, economic development and improved educational opportunities for Ohioans. Yesterday, the cities of Portsmouth and Wooster announced that they now will join Akron, Athens and Youngstown as hubs for Phase II development of the broadband network. The two cities are agricultural hubs and will add that economic sector to the network mix.

“This is the new gold standard for technology and information sharing, and we want to ensure that the entire state benefits from its potential,” Governor Kasich said.

The Ohio Controlling Board approved today the $3.1 million state investment in this latest broadband enhancement. Additionally, the state will offer assistance to 33 of Ohio’s four-year public and private and two-year community and technical institutions to contract with vendors to upgrade their last-mile connections to the network backbone. Phase I of the development will connect Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo by September 2012. Phase II will be complete by the end of the year.

The 100 Gbps network will connect OARnet to Internet2 through connection points at the northern and southern ends of the state. Internet2, a nationwide advanced networking consortium, spans U.S. and international institutions that are leaders in the worlds of research, academia, industry and government.

Thirteen Iowa institutions and organizations applied to serve as regional STEM network hubs, which will physically house the coordinating centers and their network hub managers.  A review panel selected by the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council Executive Committee recommended the six finalists to Branstad, who accepted the recommendations without changes.

The six hubs are:

Northwest hub – Iowa Lakes Community College
Northeast hub – University of Northern Iowa
North central hub – Iowa State University
Southwest hub – Southwestern Community College
Southeast hub  – University of Iowa & Kirkwood Community College
South central hub  – Drake University
 

“These six regional STEM network hubs will be the driving force offering Iowa youngsters more opportunities to learn about STEM, which will better prepare them to someday consider STEM careers,” Branstad said. “STEM fields are among the fastest-growing, with many jobs that pay well.”

The initial investment of $620 million in the second year of the State’s current biennium will allow Oregon’s new care organizations to coordinate care for Medicaid patients while reducing preventable errors. Oregon estimates that this will achieve $11 billion in savings over the next decade.

Currently, there are 600,000 medicaid patients that would be effected by the coordinated care program. Oregon has also received federal funding for its cooperative health care program, through the Affordable Care Act. The state is also moving forward on a health insurance exchange despite a court challenge of federal health care reform.

“With unprecedented collaboration between local communities, health care providers and our federal partners, Oregon is on the right track to create a system that will both improve care and reduce costs,” said Governor Kitzhaber in a statement.

Chief Auditor H. Chris Der Vartanian has resigned after 21-years in state government, citing a move by Governor Chaffee to end the bureau of audits and move the functions into a new office. Funding for the bureau was cut as part of budget negotiations in the state. The functions would be merged into other existing administrative offices, effectively ending the watchdog aspect of the bureau.

Writing in his resignation letter, Der Vartanian said, “ironically this proposed elimination comes at a time when the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) one of the country’s oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations categorized the Bureau as one of the highest performing state internal audit agencies in the country and one of the major factors leading to the state of Rhode Island achieving a ranking of 10th in the nation in terms of preventing corruption. The CPI indicated that without the independent Bureau of Audits, the ranking for the State of Rhode Island would drop to 33rd in the nation for preventing corruption, a testament to the work performed by our office.”

He has also asked for a meeting with state executives to go over the functions of the office.

In South Carolina, Republican lawmakers there are proposing an amendment that would eliminate the Budget and Control Board and create a new Department of Administration. The new department would effectively bring 90% of the state’s administrative duties under control of the Governor.

The bill is part of a broader administrative overhaul being pursued by the majority republican state government to bring the number of agencies down to 10. The proposed new org chart is here.

According to an article in The State the new department would have an executive director appointed by the Governor and would control administrative functions such as IT and human resources.

“The Ramapo Jobs Connector” is a free service offered to job seekers that has information about thousands of jobs in multiple industries at all levels of employment. Residents of Ramapo and Rockland County will directly benefit by hearing about available jobs before anyone else, and employers will be able to reach qualified, local candidates fast and first. The Town of Ramapo is the first town in the United States to offer a platform like this.

A number of local companies have already partnered with the Town of Ramapo to post jobs on the site.

“Enhancing economic development and furthering job creation and retention are essential in order for us to achieve economic stability and improve the quality of life for our residents,” said Supervisor St. Lawrence.

Individuals who register at http://ramapo.tweetmyjobs.com or via links from www.ramapo.org will receive relevant job matches instantaneously by e-mail, text message, or from social networks like Twitter and Facebook.