City officials in Jacksonville, Florida, have always placed a high premium on security, but the installation of an Oracle Human Resources Information System gave them an opportunity to create a city-wide standard photo identification badge for their employees, thus taking their security system up another notch.

The Oracle Human Resources Information System, a database of employee information, would enable the City of Jacksonville to make strategic decisions based on statistics. As part of their new system, employee photos and new employee numbers were
being captured. What better time to create new photo ID badges?

"In the past, employee badge designs either varied or didn't exist, depending on where an employee worked," said Bill Marshall, manager of personnel services for the city. "That made it more difficult to enforce security – something that's definitely on everyone's mind today in light of recent events." Previously, it was possible for individuals with no identification to walk through the Jacksonville City Hall. Today that's not true. More than 5,000 new employee, vendor, and volunteer identification badges have been created since January 2002. Except for a few areas, which continue to need separate identification materials, all city employees now wear a standard identification badge.

The double-sided cards pack a lot of information. In addition to an employee photo and number, it includes a logo of the City of Jacksonville, the city's mission statement, and information on the Sterling Award. (Jacksonville won the Governor's Sterling
Award for significant improvement and achievement of performance excellence in 2001. This prestigious award, based on the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, has only been given to one other city since its creation in 1992, and Jacksonville officials are rightfully proud.)

A bar code and magnetic stripe on the back of the card allow flexibility for future upgrades to the city's security system, which may include bar code readers in the months ahead, according to Marshall. "We may implement controlled access," he said, "and we
wanted the badges to be able to accommodate that option."

The system works in conjunction with a Kodak digital video camera and ID software. "We've been very happy with the system," added Marshall. "It is fast, it is reliable, and the colors don't smudge. We like being able to work with a digitized photo, and we believe that the system is flexible enough to meet our needs going into the future."

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