Innovations in American Government Award Winners Announced

The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government today announced seven state, city and local government programs as winners of the 2007 Innovations in American Government Awards. The winners were honored at yesterday's Innovations in American Government Awards twentieth anniversary reception at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. Multiple foreign and national dignitaries were in attendance and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill delivered the keynote address. This event launches a year long twentieth anniversary celebration of the Ash Institute's Innovations in American Government Awards Program.

Many of 400 innovations honored over the Innovations in American Government program's 20 year history are forerunners for state and federal legislation. Award-winning programs like Compstat, NYC's crime reduction tool; Parents as Teachers, Missouri's child development initiative and the Program Assessment Rating Tool, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget's federal program performance management tool, serve as harbingers of current reform strategies.

"We congratulate the 2007 Innovations in American Government and IBM award recipients as well as the nearly 200 award-winning government programs honored over the past twenty years," said Stephen Goldsmith, director of the Innovations in American Government Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "These programs demonstrate that government on all levels can achieve scalable solutions to pressing global issues."

Selected by an esteemed national selection committee, chaired by David Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School, the 2007 Innovations in American Government winners were acknowledged from a pool of nearly 1,000 applicants as exemplary models of innovative programming which offer demonstrable benefits to citizens nationwide and have strong potential for replication across the country.

The global recipient of the special $100,000 IBM Award in Transforming Government was also announced yesterday. Recognized as preeminent transformative government initiative in operation worldwide, Singapore 's Institute of Technical Education was selected from more than 100 applicants representing over 30 countries and all levels of government.

The seven 2007 Innovations in American Government Award winners are:

• Automated Community Connection to Economic Self-Sufficiency State of Florida. Florida redesigned and modernized its process for determining eligibility for public assistance. The ACCESS Florida model is streamlined, cost efficient and nationally recognized for excellence.
• Citizen and Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting (CLEAR). City of Chicago, Illinois. Citizen and Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting (CLEAR) is the enterprise information system for the entire Chicago Police Department and one of the most sophisticated information systems in the nation.
• Climate Protection Initiative City of Seattle, Washington. The Climate Protection Initiative accelerates climate protection action citywide and in hundreds of other cities, catalyzing grassroots action around the country and promoting essential state and federal policy changes.
• Community Care State of North Carolina. Community Care is a physician-led Medicaid managed care program of local provider networks serving 750,000 patients. The networks improve quality and access to care while saving millions of dollars.
• Electronic Court Records King County, Washington. Electronic Court Records gives court case file users electronic access. Scanning and e-filing have eliminated paper files, resulting in faster processing, desktop access to documents and better security.