MEMORANDUM NO. SAD 98-97
 

TO:	Chief Fiscal Officers Vice Chancellors Business Managers
FROM:	Gwen Canady Chief Deputy State Controller
SUBJECT:	Creation of E-Mail Databases

The Office of the State Controller (OSC) is continually looking for ways to improve the operating efficiency of State government and to reduce costs. In working toward this goal, we believe that our office can correspond more efficiently with State agencies and institutions through electronic media. Currently, our office issues all memoranda in paper form, using either the State courier service or the U.S. Postal Service for delivery. In addition, certain memoranda are also available on the Internet within the N.C. Accounting System Information Guide (SIG). While issuing letters and memoranda in paper form is still the general practice throughout State government, this method has higher distribution and handling costs as compared to electronic distribution. For example, when OSC distributes a memorandum in paper form, we must incur additional costs for paper, duplication, labor, envelopes, and postage. Likewise, when agencies receive letters and memoranda, they must incur additional handling costs to forward the correspondence to the recipients. However, if our office delivered these correspondences electronically (via the OSC homepage or e-mail), we could substantially reduce the delivery and handling costs. As an added benefit, agencies would receive the electronic communications almost instantaneously.

Because of the above benefits, our office plans to utilize more electronic communications in the future. Likewise, we hope to reduce the number of paper memoranda that we distribute. We are in the process of establishing the necessary procedures for corresponding electronically with State agencies and institutions. Currently, we plan to put official memoranda to large groups, such as Chief Fiscal Officers (State Agencies) or Business Managers (Community Colleges), in the "Important Memos" section of the SIG. Subsequently, we plan to notify each recipient via e-mail the date the memoranda are made available on the SIG (with the memo number and title). Also, in cases where our office issues a letter to a single recipient or a small number of recipients, we plan to deliver the letter as an e-mail attachment (text document format), provided the letter is not available on the SIG. Finally, those agencies without access to e-mail and the Internet would continue to receive paper copies of our correspondences by regular mail.

It is very important that you complete the enclosed form by August 15, 1998 and return it to the following address.
 

Our office will use this data to establish an electronic mail system to inform you of NCAS changes and requirements. Also, please notify us of any future changes to this information. If you have any questions or comments, please contact Angela Spence at (919) 981-5466 or aspence@controller.osc.state.nc.us. This project will not be successful without your assistance.

Thank you in advance for you cooperation.

GC/wcm/als

Click on the appropriate document format below to open the data sheet for your agency:
 

Attachment for Chief Fiscal Officers	Word Format	Adobe Acrobat Format
Attachment for Vice Chancellors	Word Format	Adobe Acrobat Format
Attachment fo Business Managers	Word Format	Adobe Acrobat Format