Two Hawaii e-government initiatives received national recognition for excellence today.

The Center for Digital Government announced the latest Digital Government Achievement Awards and the Best of the Web Awards. The state's eBench Warrant system received a Digital Government Achievement Award in the Government-to-Government category. Meanwhile, the official site for Maui County took 4th Place in the County Portal Category in the Best of the Web.

The eBench Warrant system was launched last March, largely to address a huge backlog of over 70,000 unserved warrants that together represented over $20 million in uncollected revenue. It has already streamlined the delivery of 15,000 warrants, amounting to a reduction in the total number of old warrants of more than 20 percent.

The system was developed by Hawaii Information Consortium, the team behind eHawaii.gov. The company worked with the Hawaii State Judiciary, state Department of Public Safety, Honolulu Police Department, Hawaii Police Department, Kauai Police Department and Maui Police Department.

Russell Castagnaro, general manager of eHawaiiGov, says the award is a "really big deal to the state."

"Even though most people think states have these amazing Google-like search engines for warrants issued by the courts, they don't," he notes.

The Maui County portal was built by CivicPlus, a Kansas-based company that has worked with over 600 cities, counties, schools and other organizations. The same software powers the portal for 5th place Park County, Colo.

The Achievement Awards recognize outstanding agency and department web sites and projects, and all U.S. and international government agencies at all levels were eligible. The Best of the Web Awards, meanwhile, has recognized excellence of official Web portals of American states, counties and cities for the past 15 years.

"The winners’ innovative use of the Internet to continue delivering citizen services despite tight fiscal constraints is inspiring," said Cathilea Robinett, CDG executive director. "This skilled use of the Web embodies the spirit of the Best of the Web awards and provides examples to state and local government leaders around the country on how to bring quality services to their citizens while containing costs."