January 12, 2006

Originally established in 1791, New York's Tioga County has fought with numerous budget limitations and a host of other issues over the past couple of years.

"In the state of New York, a lot of counties have exhausted all their options," says Ron McEwen, Deputy Treasurer and Budget Officer of Tioga County.

"We've actually gone through some phases of downsizing employment."

The dilemma is common to a lot of local government organizations. Any more downsizing will cut into the government's ability to provide mandated services, but there isn't any more money on tap.

One solution is to use e-business to create efficiency and productivity gains. This is what Tioga County is trying to do with its recent selection of vendor Xenos for e-forms and electronic reporting. "We did a feasibility study and found that we could save thousands of dollars," says Suzanne Horton, Director of IT for Tioga County.

The savings come from automating the distribution of many different kinds of documents, including a thousand purchase orders a month. Electronic distribution means that Tioga County's 500 full- and part-time employees have to spend less time on processing and administrative tasks. "We'll be at full ROI in a year," says McEwen.

The Xenos deployment is very new for Tioga County, but the county plans to expand its use to provide services for residents as well as employees.

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