2017 Innovations in American Government Awards

Company Website: https://www.virginia.gov
RICHMOND, Va. -- (Business Wire)

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, recognized Stafford County as part of its 2017 Innovations in American Government Awards, Bright Ideas initiative.

The Innovations in American Government Awards is the nation's preeminent program devoted to recognizing and promoting excellence and creativity in the public sector. The program highlights exemplary models of government innovation and advances efforts to address the nation's most pressing public concerns. The Bright Ideas initiative is designed to further recognize and promote creative government initiatives and partnerships and create an online community where innovative ideas can be proposed, shared, and disseminated.

The myStafford Customer Portal is a forward-thinking, mobile-friendly e-billing, business e-filing, and payment solution for the citizens and businesses of Stafford County. The solution simplifies the user experience, offering online management of various accounts, bill tracking, and payment from a single convenient location, regardless of the originating office or department.

“We are incredibly honored to receive the Bright Idea designation,” said Laura Rudy, Stafford County Treasurer. “The myStafford Customer Portal has been a remarkable success and as a Bright Idea shared throughout the government community, it is humbling to think of the potential it has to positively impact government and citizen interactions across our great nation.”

The myStafford Customer Portal has been providing convenience to the citizens and businesses of Stafford County since 2013, and it continues to be a defining element of Stafford County eGovernment. Serving more than 15,000 customers per month, and with over 6,000 enrolled for e-billing making more than 9,000 payments a month, the County and its citizens are enjoying significant time and cost savings. Prior to implementation of the myStafford Customer Portal, the Treasurer’s Office answered over 49,000 customer service calls per year. Since implementation, incoming calls have decreased by 30 percent, nearly 15,000 calls annually. Additionally, the Department of Utilities spends roughly 64 cents to print and mail each utility bill. The Treasurer’s Office saves $1 in manual processing costs per online transaction. At the current level of adoption, the Portal is providing over $177,000 and growing in annual cost savings for the County.

Adding functionality for Stafford County businesses, the newly integrated e-filing solution provides a secure mobile-friendly way for businesses to e-file monthly fiduciary remittances online. Using their myStafford customer account, e-filing users can upload necessary supporting documentation and make payments securely using e-check or credit card. Transaction histories and account management features are also readily available on the e-filing dashboard.

The myStafford Customer Portal and the new e-filing solutions are products of a partnership between the Stafford County Treasurer’s Office, the Stafford County Commissioner of the Revenue, the Department of Utilities, and Virginia Interactive. Scalable, flexible, and delivered with no upfront costs to the County, the myStafford Customer Portal is a model solution for other local governments delivering citizen-centric service at its best.

About Virginia Interactive

Virginia Interactive, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of NIC, is part of the NIC family of digital government service providers, making life simple for the citizens and businesses of the Commonwealth of Virginia. www.virginiainteractive.org

About NIC

Founded in 1992, NIC (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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Contacts:

Stafford County
Laura Rudy, 540-658-8704
Treasurer
name@agency.virginia.gov
or
Virginia Interactive, LLC
Travis Sarkees, 804-786-1855
General Manager
travis@egov.com

Source: Virginia Interactive, LLC