Information technology and the finance officer.

• Author: Kinney, Anne Spray
• Position: From the editor - Editorial

Annually, GFOA produces an issue of the Government Finance Review focused on technology Each year, there are advances in technology to report on, as well as new ways governments have found to use technology to support productivity, decision making, and citizen involvement.

Citizens are comfortable interacting electronically in their professional and personal lives and expect to interact with their governments in the same way. Governments are finding that moving to constituent relationship management (CRM) systems to enable better communication with their citizens can help streamline service delivery and also save money. Shayne Kavanagh's article Serving Constituents, Saving Dollars: The Cost-Reduction Potential of Constituent Relationship Management outlines ways governments have benefited from implementing CRM systems.

Approximately 350 cities across the country are in some stage of implementing citywide Wi-Fi and hundreds more are exploring the idea. An important step in the decision-making process fails to the financial officer: calculating potential risks and rewards. In her article, Dollars and Sense on Muni Wireless, Becca Vargo Daggett looks at various models for evaluating Wi-Fi as a public investment.

Finance and IT departments are becoming partners in maintaining the technology base needed to run the business of government. Optimizing a government's technology expenditures requires the finance officer to take a leadership role in technology asset management. Financial considerations and accountability can consolidate and improve the decision-making processes for IT...