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High Fuel Costs: A Problem-Solving Challenge
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As rising fuel costs put the squeeze on law enforcement department budgets, chiefs and sheriffs are searching for ways to sustain their current level of operations, while using less gasoline. Some are finding their solutions in differential responses to calls for service, modified patrol methods, and use of vehicles with improved gas mileage or alternative fuels. The need to find innovative ways to save on fuel costs while continuing to provide the level of service communities have come to expect is likely to remain a long-term challenge for police chiefs and sheriffs. This article’s review of recent news coverage of higher fuel costs, as well as conversations that were conducted with a variety of law enforcement officials, suggest that there are a number of ways that agencies can mitigate the impact on their agency budget. This article strives to highlight some short-term as well as potentially long-term solutions found, an important consideration because gas is unlikely to return to the lower prices enjoyed in the past.
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NASCIO on Data Governance: An Essential Discipline for Managing State Information
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The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) is pleased to announce the release of its new issue brief ‘‘Data Governance Part I – An Introduction.’’ This issue brief is part of NASCIO’s series on Enterprise Governance and presents an overview of this very broad subject. Data governance is presented as an operating discipline that must ultimately encompass all types of electronic data, information, and knowledge as enterprise assets that must be well managed in order to enable government to deliver positive citizen outcomes. The governance challenge was ranked as one of the top ten priorities of state CIOs in a survey of the states conducted in October 2007. This issue brief is available at: www.nascio.org/publications.
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Police Launch Online Crime-Alerting System
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The Plano (Texas) Police Department has partnered with CrimeReports.com to alert citizens when a crime situation occurs in their area. The free service provides easy-to-read incident crime maps and automated alerts. The CrimeReports service is free to the public and allows citizens to receive automatic daily, weekly, or monthly e-mail alerts, if and when crimes occur near their home, office, or local school. Citizens can also view reported crime activity for any location within Plano's boundaries. Crime incident data is updated nightly and includes incident type, date, location, distance from citizen's address, case number, and brief crime incident description. The CrimeReports service is an implementation of the Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM), the authorized data sharing protocol developed and supported by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Using GJXDM as the underlying technology gives the application much more versatility and flexibility. If adjacent law enforcement agencies choose to integrate with the service, side-by-side data will be readily available for both alerting and analytics. For more information or to sign up for this service, please visit the Plano Police Department's Web site at www.plano.gov/departments/police. The service was launched in beta with the Metropolitan Police of Washington, DC, in March 2007 and was made available to any accredited law enforcement agency in the United States in August 2007.
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DHS Proposes Biometric Airport and Seaport Exit Procedures
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced a notice of proposed rulemaking that will establish biometric exit procedures at all U.S. air and sea ports of departure. The majority of non-U.S. citizens and nonpermanent residents, except for Canadians, are already required to submit digital fingerprints and a digital photograph for admission into the country. The US-VISIT Exit proposal would require non-U.S. citizens, who provide biometric identifiers for admission, to also provide digital fingerprints when departing the country from any air or sea ports of departure. The United States Congress, the 9/11 Commission, and the department have concluded that biometric records of the entry and exit of international visitors are essential for the integrity of the nation's immigration and border management system. The proposed rule does not change current exit procedures for departing visitors. Visitors departing the United States should continue to return their paper Form I-94 or Form I-94W to airline or ship representatives. DHS completed a test of biometric exit procedures at several U.S. airports and seaports last year. Based on the results of this test, DHS determined that biometric exit procedures must be integrated into the existing traveler process to ensure compliance and provide visitors with a consistent experience from port to port.
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Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global) Advisory Committee (GAC) Meeting Summary (Agenda), April 10, 2008 
The Value of Information Sharing to Local Government Executives