States must also proceed with caution when outsourcing digital government to ensure that they are not shirking their stewardship responsibilities, Struckman says. Officials must carefully detail who owns the data and what entity may be allowed to mine that data once a third party is involved. Redundancies in the network are also necessary to ensure adequate backup if the network goes down. While two of the states have a fixed price contract with NIC, the others operate under the self-funded model. NIC sets up a corporation in each state's capital, buys all hardware, software and application development tools, and staffs the office with its employees.
Users pay the freight via convenience and transaction fees.
We simply are a resource that they have brought in for these core competencies. NIC leverages the revenue it generates from commercial applications to provide free services through the portal such as community calendars, child care provider licensing data, and information on legislative and social programs. These free services comprise 95 percent of all NIC offerings. In some instances, citizens can save money by using the online services. For example, many NIC states now offer free online corporation searches.