(Lawrenceville, Ga., May 20, 2011) - Gwinnett County officials on Tuesday received the final report from a task force set up last fall to explore how technology improvements can create efficiencies, increase productivity, expand partnerships, and/or create costs savings in the local government. The Excellence Through Innovation (ETI) project is a follow-up effort to the Engage Gwinnett citizens committee that reported its findings on County operations and budget issues a year ago. The Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce co-sponsored the Engage Gwinnett initiative as well as the ETI task force and also served in a support role for the task force's work.

After reviewing technology related suggestions from Engage Gwinnett and the County's information technology strategic plan, the task force divided itself into two committees. One studied new technologies and opportunities while the other focused on budget and efficiency.

The group said the County's IT department is "well-managed and accountable for results," but still made a number of recommendations for improvements, noting "the work of this taskforce was to look at taking our county government to a higher level of excellence." The recommendations ranged from implementing a better system for managing capital projects to continuing to consolidate information technology personnel functions from all county government agencies. The committee recommended two immediate action items: report quarterly on technology improvements and create a standing technology committee.

The 15-member volunteer task force met bi-monthly over seven months starting last October. Bill McCargo of the Atlanta Education Fund, who also served as co-leader of Engage Gwinnett, served as ETI co-chair along with Sean Murphy of Canvas Systems.

Group members included technology experts from local businesses including NCR, AT&T, Cisco, Sage Software and Canvas Systems. Key County government officials and representatives of stakeholders such as the Gwinnett Board of Education and Gwinnett Medical Center also served on the committee.

The County's Chief Information Officer and Director of IT Services John Matelski said, "We greatly appreciate the willingness of the local business community to help us find the best opportunities for using technology to make government more efficient."

The full report is available online at http://www.engagegwinnett.com/.