District of Columbia Signs Contract Providing Significant Cost Savings on Telecom Services

The District of Columbia Government (District) has signed a three-year contract with Verizon Business under which the company will provide local telecommunications voice, data and voice mail services at more than 200 District offices.

Over 20,000 District employees including police, fire and administrative personnel will receive those services. The new agreement, announced today, continues a long history of serving the evolving communications needs of the District through Verizon and its legacy companies.

“This three-year discount contract represents a new and improved business partnership for the District and Verizon,” said Vivek Kundra, Chief Technology Officer for the District of Columbia. “The Mayor, the Attorney General, Councilmembers Schwartz, Gray, and the entire Council all played critical roles in taking it to final approval. I want to thank everyone involved in this important effort on behalf of the taxpayers and employees of the District.”

According to the District Office of Planning data, at the end of 2006, DCG serves 581,530 residents, and had 26,951 “full-time equivalent” employees in the nation’s capital.

Alex Coleman, senior vice president for Verizon Business’ government and education organization, said: “Our more than 100 years of serving the District of Columbia gives us a unique perspective on its current and future needs. We look forward to working with the District as it begins to implement advanced Internet protocol services that will help improve the experience for customers in the years to come.’’

This innovative contract makes it easier for the District to both buy smarter and to save money. The agreement is projected to save between $6 million and $12 million on basic services and will allow the District to address most of the products and services that it buys from Verizon.

Kundra said: “The contract will help the District contain costs for landline and data services while taking advantage of emerging technologies. Negotiators on both sides worked hard and in good faith to draft the contract.”

The Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) identifies and implements technologies that systematically support the business process needs and requirements of District agencies. OCTO also develops and enforces policies and standards for information technology throughout the District government. OCTO’s overall mission is to leverage technology investments to increase efficiency, transparency, and accountability throughout the District.

OCTO Delivers Computers to Every DCPS Classroom

This month, fulfilling a pledge made by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration in November 2007, the District’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Vivek Kundra, announced completion of a project to provide personal computers (PCs) to all District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) classrooms.

This $4 million initiative was aimed at equipping every classroom teacher and administrator with a secure and reliable desktop computer. The District’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), under the direction of CTO Kundra, negotiated a discounted price of $628 per PC to purchase the computers. OCTO’s IT ServUs PC support program then deployed teams of technicians to crisscross the city, installing the PCs and linking them to the District’s 35,000-user email and Internet access network, as well as OCTO’s round-the-clock IT ServUs PC Helpdesk.

The OCTO PC project revived and fast-tracked a project planned but never executed by the former DCPS administration before Mayor Fenty’s schools takeover last year. In September 2007 DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee and CTO Kundra signed an agreement for OCTO to take over DCPS information technology functions. The former DCPS administration had planned the PC project to take a year, but Mayor Fenty, Chancellor Rhee, and CTO Kundra determined that the need for PCs in the classrooms was urgent, and the project should be completed in just eight weeks. Using OCTO’s Geographic Information Systems technology to chart the most efficient routes around the city, OCTO’s IT ServUs team beat the eight-week timetable by one week, starting the project on November 26, 2007 and completing the installations on January 8, 2008.

“This project lays the foundation for using technology to improve public education in the District,” said CTO Kundra. “We must use the Internet and other technology resources to empower our teachers to make learning more exciting and help our students prepare to compete in the global economy.”

The OCTO teams installed a total of about 5900 PCs, about 70% for teachers in DCPS classrooms, 25% for administrative personnel, and 5% for use by custodians, cafeteria workers, and long-term DCPS volunteers. About 500 PCs remaining from OCTO’s bulk purchase will be reserved for various uses, including the District’s four new high tech campuses, additional cafeteria use, and spares for later replacements as needed.

The PCs will serve as classroom teaching tools and will also provide teachers with a variety of resources that few DCPS teachers had before. Now teachers can access a central database of student records and create and maintain grade and attendance records electronically. They can also access the District’s email system and use it to share ideas and information with their colleagues, principals, administrative personnel, and parents. Teachers can now use the Internet to identify and download teaching tools and resources for their students.

“This initiative is critical to driving student achievement forward in the District. Our schools have gone too long without having access to the technology they need to compete,” Chancellor Rhee said. “Among other benefits, I look forward to increasing central office capacity to communicate with all of our teachers and students.”

Before the OCTO project, some teachers and administrators had PCs—but an OCTO analysis found them riddled with viruses, and some teachers said they had been waiting months for simple PC problems to be fixed. The new DCPS PCs are equipped with powerful anti-virus protection. When problems surface, teachers can call the IT ServUs Helpdesk, get a ticket number for tracking, and have the problem resolved within a few minutes, or at most a few hours.

“Customer service is the heart of our program,” said OCTO IT ServUs Director Aki Damme. “Nothing is more gratifying than knowing we can help thousands of teachers teach more effectively and give students all over the District a more vibrant, up-to-date environment for learning.”

Improving Health and Human Services

The DC Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) has
revamped its health and human services application to enable
more efficient, effective, and proactive collaboration among
District health and human services agencies. The enhancements
will allow agency workers to conduct screening interviews and
perform detailed assessments of a family or individual to determine
potential eligibility for various District assistance programs,
such as Medicaid, DC Health Care Alliance, Medicare Buy-in,
Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF),
and Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening (AKA Project WISH).

For more infromation visit http://ssc.rrc.dc.gov/ssc/site

Evidence Warehouse Wiki

Today the DC Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) launched a wiki site to assist OCP and MPD in identifying and notifying interested and qualified parties who have the expertise and capability to provide an Evidence Control and Storage Facility on a fast track basis. Detailed requirements and instructions will be provided through a formal solicitation which will be released in January 2008.

A Pre-Solicitation Conference will be held on Friday, January 4, 2008 at a location to be announced and will consist of a briefing, followed by an open question and answer session. At the conference, the Office of Contracting and Procurement (OCP) and the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) will provide an overview of current issues, uses, capability, needs and constraints.

For more information visit http://evidencewarehouse.ocp.dc.gov/.

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