Stop credit card mail offer

Five state agencies have signed on to open storefronts in Louisiana's government e-Mail when it opens this summer.

And people say governmental agencies are stodgy old sticks-in-the-mud.

The Internet and a mail-what could be more hip?

The e-Mail starter kit will have insurance, Realtor licensing, road construction, economic development and an administrative law bookstore.

Judging by the anticipation of the five agencies' respective industries, the site should be a hit when it comes up this summer.

The first five services to come online will be the departments of Economic Development, Insurance, and Transportation and Development, the Louisiana Real state Commission and the Office of the State Register.

State administrators decided to start with some of the departments already familiar with the ways of business on the Web to test the capabilities of a state services Internet portal before bringing all state services on board, said Don Hutchinson, secretary of economic development.

"I think that that will be a model program not only for other governmental programs in the state but in other states'," he said. "We feel that it is really a trailblazing concept."

Hutchinson said he expects the process to be smoother for later waves of state agencies than the first group.

"The five agencies will settle all the bumps and bruises," he said.

The first five know they are in for whatever bugs the system retains when testing is complete this summer, but all were too intrigued to pass it up.

The savings in time and budget are worth the experimental status of being the first on the block to loin up, said Belle Dunaway, assistant director of the Louisiana Real Estate Commission.

"We're like the little guinea pigs," she said.

The fearless five may be breaking new ground-as far as the e-Mail concept goes, but all of them have information technology and Internet foundations and plans for future expansion of Web platforms.

Much of the planning for agencies revolves around legislative passage of e-signature and verification laws in this year's regular session, but most administrators are the laws should go through smoothly.

The real estate commission's site, for instance, currently is primarily a place for Realtors and agents to download and exchange information, Dunaway said.

"When we first got in starting the Web site, we got requests from licensees wanting to be online communicating with LREC," Dunaway said.

Later plans involve mixing in the purchase of manuals and study guides and certification of schools and instructors, Dunaway said.

Licensees will be able to get new licenses, renew old ones and get receipt over the Internet once the e-Mail is up and the electronic signature legislation is enacted, she said.

DOTD's information services department is ramping up to be able to give permits and licenses to contractors over the Web once the e-Mail comes up, Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson's own department will be exploring ways to handle its business with companies looking to expand in or move to Louisiana.

The ability to handle some of the-paperwork on the state's incentives for new business over the Web may even have the side effect of showing how easy the state is to do business with.

One of the sites least dependent on the e-signature laws is that of the Office of the State Register, within the Division of Administration.

The office publishes and updates the Louisiana Register and Louisiana Administrative Code, keeping attorneys and businesses up to date on Louisiana law.

For OSR, the Web site serves mainly as a handy place to provide updates, but it will soon be a way for those in need of bound hard copies of the rules and laws to order the copies without having to go to a repository, director Jeff Truax said.

Having access to the rules and laws through the Web is handy for quick lookups and keeping abreast, but many attorneys and libraries need to have the official certified copies, Truax said.

'They'll purchase them the same way you do a purchase online with Amazon," he said.

On the busy end of the scale, the Insurance Deportment has been working for, the past three years to prepare to handle state regulatory business through a program called the System for Electronic Rate and Form Filing, or SERFF, said Robert Wooley, acting insurance commissioner.

That effort made the decision to join the e-Mall an easy one, he said.

"They asked us if we would be interested and we jumped at the idea of doing it," Wooley said.

The department is already licensed to use the system and is waiting for the electronic signature laws to go through before implementing it, he said.

"You will be able to fill all rate filings and form filing with the department electronically," Wooley said.

Only information exchange services are available at present for insurers and agents through the department site.

The Insurance Department will also be able to handle agent licensing, applications and payment of fees over the Internet, he said.

Another feature will be a database of all company and agent licenses supported by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Wooley said.

"They'll have a national database to check on companies that are in other states," he said. "The industry's been wanting the national organization to provide better databases."

Further down the line are plans to post listings of consumer complaints once they are resolved and a system for consumers to track the status of complaints filed with the department.

A sixth state department, the Department of the Treasury, is heavily involved in the e-Mall, making sure its transactions work for the other five, Hutchinson said.

"Treasury will handle the back office operations," he said.

As the state's banker, Treasury was the logical choice to handle credit card transactions and the like, Hutchinson said.

The final piece of the puzzle to make the e-Mall a go is the state's newly filled chief information officer position, he said.

The e-Mall idea predates new CIO Jim Dubos by several months, but it is the CIO who will shape the e-Mall, Hutchinson said.

"The CIO, as we envision it, will take it to the next level," he said.