The Challenge
The Arizona Governor's Office of Highway Safety (AZ GOHS) is the focal point for highway safety issues in Arizona. AZ GOHS provides leadership by developing, promoting, and coordinating programs; influencing public and private policy; and increasing public awareness of highway safety. One emphasis of the Highway Safety funding process is to provide grant money to develop effective programs that can become operational within a three-year period. If the program(s) are successful, the state or local jurisdiction will establish the program(s) as a permanent responsibility of the jurisdiction.

Prior to 2007, AZ GOHS personnel spent a large amount of time managing paperwork and scoring about 180 new proposals each year. The entire process, proposals, reviews, reports, and contracts, were all paper. Proposals would take two days to review, and then any pursuant contract took at least two to three hours to write. Often times, due to the excessive amount of paper, errors and mistakes were overlooked. If an error or mistake was found, the paper trail became even larger. Proposals would be sent back and forth between the potential grantee and the AZ GOHS, and additional copies would need to be made; contracts were scraped and thrown away if an error was found, and would then need to be corrected and reprinted.

AZ GOHS realized the inefficiencies in their process and decided that they needed to implement a system that could help increase their productivity as well as provide efficiencies where they were currently lacking.

The Solution
The AZ GOHS grants management system limits the amount of paper that was previously being used by the department. Applications and reports, such as reimbursement reports and quarterly reports, are now filled out online. The AZ GOHS grants management system utilizes the ability to limit the length of the required narratives in the application, which also contributes to the reduced consumption of paper.

The reporting capabilities in the AZ GOHS grants management system makes it easier to extract data from the applications and reports that were previously hard to find amidst all of the paper.

Contracts that used to take two to three hours to compile now take 30 minutes. At the click of a button the AZ GOHS grants management system gathers information required in the contract from the submitted proposal. The AZ GOHS then use a document merge to transfer all of the data from the AZ GOHS grants management system into a contract template.

The Benefits
Before the implementation of the AZ GOHS grants management system, the AZ GOHS would use 12,000 pieces of paper each year for their proposals which does not include reports or contracts. The process for reviewing the proposals was very time consuming and inefficient. Only one person was able to review the proposal at a time. After the proposal was reviewed by a team of up to eight people, a review of the review was necessary to understand everyone’s comments and suggestions.

The AZ GOHS grants management system went live in 2007, and has since created many efficiencies throughout the two offices (Tucson and Phoenix). The system reduces errors that may have previously been missed due to human error and the amount of paper used for the application. Areas of the application were built into the system with specific instructions to aid in the approval process. Contracts are now error free with the use of the document merge.

The amount of paper previously being used has been reduced. Proposals and attachments are no longer submitted in paper, and the review process takes place within the system. If there is an area of the application that needs to be printed, the AZ GOHS grants management system has the ability to print specific pages helping to reduce waste.

The system has shortened the amount of time spent on the overall process, and allows the AZ GOHS to focus on project development and the community.

The Feedback

"The AZ GOHS grants management system reduces waste and improves efficiency."

- Sean Hammond, Project Coordinator, Arizona Governor’s Office of
Highway Safety.