Arkansas, New Hampshire Tap NIC for E-Gov

Two states have signed new electronic government contracts with National Information Consortium Inc.

Arkansas has renewed a contract for the management of its e-government Web portal, while New Hampshire has signed a contract for e-government licensing, the company announced in December.

NIC of Overland Park, Kan., won a three-year contract extension to provide comprehensive electronic government services to Arkansas through its subsidiary, the Arkansas Information Consortium.

The Arkansas portal, known as accessArkansas, offers more than 180 online services to constituents, including vehicle tag renewals, hunting and fishing licenses, professional license renewals, business tax filings and auctions for surplus state property.

NIC has processed more than 2 million transactions through accessArkansas since the portal was established in 1997. The three-year contract renewal will run through June 2004.

The New Hampshire licensing initiative is a seven-year contract with New England Interactive, a NIC subsidiary based in Augusta, Maine. The subsidiary manages state government portal operations for Maine and Rhode Island.

The contract will begin with pilot projects for hunting and fishing licenses and professional license renewal for architects and engineers.

Once the pilot applications are launched successfully, up to 18 additional online licensing and renewal services are expected to be introduced, NIC said.

The New Hampshire state government will pay New England Interactive $425,000 in application development and hosting fees for the pilot projects. Once the pilot projects are completed, New Hampshire state agencies are expected to cover costs separately to build incremental online applications.

NIC manages e-government operations on behalf of 15 states and eight local governments. The company has more than 350 employees.