Please fill in all of the *required fields below, “Save As” to your PC, then include it as an attachment when you schedule a time to meet with the IT Supervisor who sent this form to you.

 

Project Description, Business Case & Cost Estimate

 

*Project Name:

Flood Ready Database Update, Web Access for Multi-Agency Data Updates,  Report Creation

 

*Project Description:

Flood Ready Vermont is a tool to provide support for flood resilience planning, best practices and data to municipal leaders and regional planners.  The site is the primary source of information on Flood Resilient Communities incentives as required in statute.  The Emergency Relief and Assistance Fund (ERAF) is the primary component of the incentives at this time and it identifies five specific community flood mitigation actions.  Communities taking these steps, including the protection of river corridors, qualify for higher levels of post-disaster funding from the State of Vermont.

 

The status of community mitigation actions is very important to communities and there has been considerable concern about presenting and updating data accurately and promptly to reflect community initiatives.  In the event of a federally-declared disaster the ERAF data on Flood Ready Vermont is the official record of community status.

 

The five mitigation actions identified by ERAF are tracked by different agencies including the Dept. of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (DEMHS), VTrans, and ANR.   At this time the data has to be frequently updated by hand from different sources.  This leads to data being handled several times creating lag time on accurate data, duplicating staff effort, and allowing an opportunity to introduce transcription errors.

 

To reduce delay and redundant handling the intent for the Flood Ready Vermont website project has been to create a method for the primary agencies responsible for data to independently update their own data about ERAF criteria directly and instantaneously.  We have met with DEMHS and VTrans staff to discuss this opportunity, we have identified their data access, security, and data management needs and we are ready to begin the process of creating web-access for the management of data by these cooperating agencies.  

 

To meet this need Flood Ready Vermont needs:

1.       A web-accessible database with password access (replacing an existing Access database);

2.       A tool to upload scans/pdfs of key documents; and,

3.       Report designs appropriate for the site users.

 

 

*Staffing:  List program staff and other stakeholders dedicated to project development.

Ned Swanberg
Stakeholders include DEMHS, VTrans, ANR and the Secretary of Administration

 

*Describe the business need or problem this project would address: (What are the project objectives including ties to organizational strategic goals)

The Flood Ready Vermont website www.floodready.vermont.gov serves to promote protection of river corridors and use of best practices (Act 138), Flood Resilient Communities (Act 110), and flood resilience plans by municipalities and regions (Act 16).

 

The ERAF data is one of the most important needs that draw users to the site and that promotes municipal mitigation actions.  This data needs to be correct to be authoritative.

 

To achieve ANR water quality goals and flood resilience we need to work in close cooperation with other agencies to align policies and incentives.  The ERAF component of the Flood Resilient Communities program is one of the most critical elements of this inter-agency and multi-sector collaboration.

 

*Opportunity Costs:  Would NOT implementing the project result in penalties, lost federal funding or benefits, or higher future costs?  Are their environmental risks from NOT doing this?  Other risks?

The accurate compilation and presentation of data from three agencies is critical to the success of the project.

 

The report functions for ERAF on Flood Ready Vermont are an important incentive for municipal action.  After a declared disaster the data maintained here will be the primary information used for the allocation of state matching funds through ERAF. 

 

NOT implementing this step hampers staff efficiency, perpetuates the lag time for data updates, increases possible transcription error rate, and reduces the accuracy and authority of the data set, and the project.

 

*Proposed Solution:  Include any model systems you are aware of that would satisfy the project’s requirements (e.g., commercial software, applications developed by other states, federal)

tSQL, web based database (similar to the Stream Alteration Permit),

 

*Important Dates: Are there any important dates or due dates regarding the project completion or deliverables?

New ERAF standards become effective Oct 23.  It would be best to have this update deployed more than a month before the next federally-declared disaster.  

 

Cost Estimate of Proposed Solution:  Consider staff, vendor, equipment, and long-term support costs

Database:  Siobhan Perricone  < 4 hours

tSQL:  Tim Phillips 200 hours?

 

LEAN Candidate?  Is the business process that this project supports a good candidate to go through the LEAN process before starting this IT project?

This is a valuable streamlining of data management as phased.

 

Anticipated Benefits of Proposed Project

Questions to consider:

·         Project increases staff efficiency by eliminating redundancy;

·         Increases data update speed;

·         Increases reliability by eliminating transcription;

·         Increases authority of data set hence value of website to community leaders and collaborating agencies.

 

Available Program Resources

 

Funding:  Describe how much funding is available to support this project and for how long.  Describe if funding will be available for long-term support.

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