Press Release

Oakland County & Michigan State University Launch Joint Egovernment Project

Pontiac, Michigan, September 24, 2004 -- Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson announced today that the County's eForms project will be part of a graduate studies program at Michigan State University. Students will work alongside Oakland County's eGovernment staff to plan the development of an Internet-based digital postmark and signature application.

"This program presents a unique opportunity for government to be a partner in education," said Patterson. "I am pleased to welcome these students to our team, and I look forward to seeing some great results from this collaboration."

Oakland County's eForms application was one of six projects selected by MSU students from a pool of 14 proposals submitted by businesses, schools and non-profit organizations. The joint application development project is part of the capstone course for MSU Information Technology students.

"The students in this course are all seniors who are completing their specialization in Information Technology Management. This project gives them a chance to test their skills in a real world project for a real client. And its a great opportunity for MSU to serve the community, as well," said Brian Pentland, Professor of Accounting and Information Systems at the Broad College of Business, Michigan State University.

"This partnership with MSU will benefit everyone," said Phil Bertolini, Oakland County Director of Information Technology. "The students will get hands-on experience in the planning phase of a Web application and our eGovernment team will get a jump on system development. But the real winners will be the citizens of Oakland County, who'll get a faster, easier way to do business with the County."

The eForms project is the County's latest step towards a paperless government. eForms will allow Oakland County residents to fill out and submit forms with a digital postmark and signature via the Internet. This simplifies the often cumbersome process of completing printed forms and mailing copies back to the County.

The County estimates that citizens will use the eForms system to submit up to 600,000 forms annually. This represents enormous time savings for those doing business with Oakland County, and is expected to shorten the waiting time for those in need of government certification, permits or registration information.

"My goal has always been to serve the citizens of Oakland County by making government more efficient and cost effective." This is really going to speed up the process for our citizens as well as County workers. Filing forms and applications with digital signatures is going to save everyone time and money," said Patterson.

The eForms project is expected to save Oakland County an estimated $900,000 in staffing costs each year. Once it is implemented, eForms will join a host of online services already offered by Oakland County via its Web site http://www.oakgov.com/online_services/.

Find more information about the Oakland County eGovernment Initiative at http://www.oakgov.com/egov/.

Find out more about Oakland County online resources at http://www.oakgov.com. For media inquiries only, please contact Bob Dustman, Oakland County Media and Communications Officer, at 248-858-1048.