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As IF there weren’t already enough reasons to grab your iPhone or iPad, now New York is about to go cyber!
Aides to Gov. Cuomo are completing a sweeping new plan to permit New Yorkers to use the Internet to obtain a variety of licenses and conduct nearly all other state business online while encouraging software developers to create a “New York app store’’ to automate services even further.
The plan, expected to save taxpayers $100 million annually when fully implemented in about a year, will speed public access to state services and “bring New York into the 21st century’’ by making maximum use of the Web, a senior Cuomo administration official said.
The effort to encourage developers to create New York-specific apps involves providing free and easy access to detailed records stored in the “cloud” by state agencies.
“The governor wants the state to be more like Apple, Microsoft or Google,’’ said the official.
“We’re a high-tech state in the private sector and we’re going to become a high-tech state in the public sector so that people can use their iPhones or iPads to access state services.
“We’re looking to do everything online in the future,’’ the official continued.
Expected to be computerized are virtually all the license applications issued by the Motor Vehicles, Environmental Conservation and Agriculture & Markets departments, as well by as the State Liquor Authority, the Department of State and the Empire State Development Corp.
“It shouldn’t be any different than getting an airline ticket: You sign in, fill out a form and then you print the ticket — or, in this case the permit — online,’’ the official said.
“The governor has made it a mandate that the government should become much more helpful and convenient for the people than it has ever been before.’’
Cuomo, meanwhile, has ordered aides to develop a separate plan to change the hours that state agencies like Motor Vehicles are open for business in recognition of the hours worked by those they’re supposed to be serving.
Among possibilities being considered are opening some state offices on Saturdays and closing them on Mondays, as well as changing working hours from the traditional 9-to-5 day to noon to 8 p.m.
“The idea is for us to make your life easier, work around your schedule and not have you having to work around ours,’’ said the official.
Cuomo is expected to present details of the proposals in his State of the State Address in early January.
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Insiders in the Cuomo administration and the Legislature agree the odds are 50-50 “at best’’ for a special postelection legislative session at which salaries for state lawmakers could be raised.
Cuomo is insisting that proposals hiking the state minimum wage, providing publicly financed elections, and authorizing new ethics reforms be taken up before a pay raise is considered, but the first two proposals are strongly opposed by Senate Republicans.
Also working against the session, and the Legislature’s first pay raise in 14 years, is the continuing taint of the scandal involving Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s “secret’’ $100,000-plus settlement with two women who accused Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez of sexual harassment.
While a probe of the scandal by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics had been expected to be concluded by Election Day, sources predicted yesterday that the investigation would not be completed by then.