Synopsis: Excellence in Municipal Information Technology:
Anaheim has the 10th largest population in California.  The city is in a unique position because it is home to 340K people and annually hosts more than 20 million visitors.  This position makes it a target for both good and bad events.  This has created challenges to providing not only a safe and secure physical environment, like roads, to providing a safe and secure environment for its information assets. In spite of the challenges you can imagine that this brings, the city has created a vision that it will provide unparalleled customer service whether in person at City Hall or on the World Wide Web.  We are tasked with keeping the ever-growing amount of data both accessible and secure; we believe these are synonymous. Partnering with EDS, and using leading-edge infrastructure products, we are achieving the goal of secure and accessible information.  An example of this is an application we developed called EVOC.  This system securely unifies information from several sources and makes it easy to access and easy to understand, so that emergency operations and management personnel can make faster and better decisions.  This is one of many technology initiatives the City is working on and that I feel are essential to serving the public trust. 

About The Speaker
William G. “Bill” Sweeney started his career in local government with the City of Long Beach in 1977, serving in the Finance, Public Works, General Services, and Parks and Recreation Departments.

He joined the City of Anaheim in 1988 as the Finance and Administrative Services Manager for Anaheim Stadium.  He held that post until 1992, when he became the City’s Budget and Audit Manager.  He was appointed Finance Director in June 1995, assuming responsibility for the department that oversees accounting, payroll, purchasing, budget, risk management, collections, and information services for the City.  In his capacity as Finance Director, Mr. Sweeney serves as the City’s chief financial officer. Anaheim has a population of over 345,000, a budget of approximately $1.3 billion, and a General Fund budget of nearly $215 million.  In 1997 Mr. Sweeney led the city’s information services privatization efforts, and is responsible for the management of the City’s outsourcing contract with Electronic Data Systems (EDS). He currently oversees a staff of 63 full-time employees and a $67 million budget.

Mr. Sweeney is a graduate of California State University at Long Beach. He is a member of the Government Finance Officers Association and the California Society of Municipal Finance Officers.  He also serves on the executive boards of various community organizations.