Texas.gov Wins Big Again in 2015

Program recognized repeatedly for digital government excellence

AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–For the fifth straight year, Texas.gov,
the State’s official website, was recognized for digital government
excellence by multiple industry award programs. Recognition spanned
several areas of the Texas.gov program, including website innovation and
excellence, cost-effective solutions for the operation of state
government, and well-crafted, effective campaigns to market online
services to citizens. The nineteen awards in 2015 represent the most
accolades the program has ever received, surpassing last year’s record
of eighteen.

“Texas citizens have grown to expect online access to all Texas
government services and information. Our teams at DIR and Texas NICUSA
always strive to meet and exceed expectations. The awards received by
the program are a testament that we continue to be on the right track,”
said Janet Gilmore, Director of Digital Government for the Texas Dept.
of Information Resources (DIR).

Highlights of this year’s awards include:

• The Texas.gov program was a finalist for the prestigious Excellence.gov
  Awards administered by the American Council for Technology
  (ACT) and Industry Advisory Council (IAC).
• The Texas Open Data Portal, sponsored by Texas.gov, received the Texas
  Association of State Systems for Computing and Communications (TASSCC)
  Excellence Award for Innovation or Inventive Projects.
• For the second year, the Texas.gov
  website ranked as one of the top five government websites in the
  nation receiving a Best of Web Award from the Center for
  Digital Government. The website was also recognized with a Communicator
  Gold Award of Excellence, a MarCom Gold Award, a Gold
  AVA Digital Award, an Interactive Media Best in Class
  Award, and Web Marketing Association Outstanding Web
  Award.
• The Texas.gov program’s multi-channel customer support team was
  honored for the second time with a Bronze Stevie Award for
  Outstanding Customer Service in an international competition
  sponsored by the American Business Awards.
• The 2014 digital marketing campaign received multiple accolades,
  including Internet Advertising Competition Best in Industry,
  Gold AVA Digital Award, Gold MarCom Award,
  and the campaign’s television
  commercials received a Communicator Silver Award of
  Distinction.

Consumer Alert: In order to safely take care of your government
business online, beware of unofficial, look-alike websites operated by
private organizations that may charge unnecessary fees for services or
information. Instead, make sure you are using the State’s official
website, www.texas.gov,
or an official state agency website to complete your online transaction.
To access an official website, enter the URL in the address bar at the
top of your Internet browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Mozilla
Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.) instead of entering the address in a
search engine bar (e.g. Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). Also look for
the .gov or state.tx.us extension which will be present in
the URLs of all official Texas state government websites.

About Texas.gov

Texas.gov is the official website of the State of Texas (www.texas.gov)
and is a collaborative public/private partnership managed by the Department
of Information Resources (DIR). Texas.gov
helps state and local government entities web-enable their services and
operates without tax funds through a partnership between the State and Texas
NICUSA, LLC. Texas NICUSA builds, operates, maintains, and markets
Texas.gov and is part of eGovernment firm NIC’s
(NASDAQ: EGOV) family of companies. Since its launch in 2000, Texas.gov
has securely processed more than 254 million financial transactions and
collected more than $33 billion on behalf of participating entities.

About NIC

Founded in 1992, NIC (NASDAQ: EGOV) is the nation’s leading provider of
official government websites, online services, and secure payment
processing solutions. The company’s innovative eGovernment services help
make government more accessible to everyone through technology. The
family of NIC companies provides eGovernment solutions for more than
3,500 federal, state, and local agencies in the United States. Forbes
has named NIC as one of the “100 Best Small Companies in America” six
times, most recently ranked at No. 36 (2014), and the company has been
included four times on the Barron’s 400 Index. Additional information is
available at http://www.egov.com.

Contacts

Texas.gov
Jennifer Buaas, 512-463-3602
jennifer.buaas@dir.texas.gov