Connecticut's eRegulations System Wins National Recognition

HARTFORD, CT: July 24, 2015: Connecticut’s eRegulations system was recognized by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, as part of its 2017 Bright Ideas initiative.  Known as “eRegs”, the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s eRegulations system provides access to all agency regulation-making records with real-times updates. The program is centrally located for easy regulation tracking rather than navigating through a variety of different, individual agencies. It has user-friendly search and browse features and email alert function for regulation tracking. 

The Connecticut eRegulations System is an efficiently designed end-to-end electronic workflow for drafting, reviewing, and publishing agency regulations and tracking regulation-making activity. The system has increased efficiency by successfully implementing standardized drafting and editing processes, automation of approval workflows, document management, publication, and archiving for end-to-end regulation management by augmenting existing state technology and requiring minimal additional staff. At the same time, it facilitates government transparency with access to a free, online, updated version of the Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies, permanent and real-time access to all agency regulation-making records, user-friendly search and browse, and citizen engagement tools like regulation tracking and online comment submission. Its basic architecture provides a template for consolidating management of the creation and publication of government laws and regulations which could be tailored to a wide range of varying state, legislative, or agency requirements.

State of Connecticut also won a 2016 ACR Robert J Colborn Award for the eregs solution. The Administrative Codes and Registers Section of NASS (national association of secretaries of state) annually recognizes a program the demonstrates creativity and innovation in providing public access to, or managing, administrative rules. They recognized the solution because the Connecticut eRegulations System has clearly improved efficiency in the state’s rule-making process while enhancing the ways the state communicates rule information to the public.

Governor Malloy and Secretary Merrill specifically applauded the work of the Department of Administrative Services' Bureau of Enterprise Systems and Technology for coordinating this project, in addition to the state's vendor, Fairfax Data Systems of New Milford, Connecticut, for its work in designing and constructing the new system. Construction of the project was financed through the Information Technology Fund, proposed by the Governor in 2011 and funded in every budget cycle since.

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