Rapid Adoption of Microsoft Dynamics Continues Across U.S. Government, Education and Health Organizations

News Press Release
Rapid Adoption of Microsoft Dynamics Continues Across U.S. Government, Education and Health Organizations

New customers turn to Microsoft Dynamics to reduce operating costs, boost efficiency and improve citizen service delivery.

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HOUSTON — March 19, 2012 — At Convergence 2012 today Microsoft Corp. announced 11 new Microsoft Dynamics customers from across the government, education and healthcare markets. These customers, including the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Louisiana State University (LSU) AgCenter, and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, join more than 1,000 public-sector organizations across every state in the U.S. that have adopted Microsoft Dynamics ERP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to drive transformative cost savings and efficiencies. “Government, education and healthcare organizations are facing increasing constituent demand for services in the face of harsh budget realities,” said Amir Capriles, senior director, Dynamics U.S. Public Sector at Microsoft. “Given these common challenges, our public-sector customers are turning to Microsoft Dynamics offerings to maximize resources and make more effective use of mission-critical data.” Microsoft Dynamics capabilities serve a range of needs unique to the government, education and healthcare industries, from finance and human resources applications to information management tools designed to help streamline social services delivery, grants management, student recruitment, telemedicine and many other public-sector missions. The Microsoft Dynamics platform also allows organizations to realize these benefits using familiar, easy-to-use tools, equipped with interoperable collaboration assets that improve communications with colleagues, students, customers and constituents. The following public-sector organizations have recently implemented Microsoft Dynamics solutions for cost and efficiency benefits: Government and Healthcare • Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Focusing on the proactive career development of their sworn officers, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in California has secured Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to develop a commendations and complaints tracking solution. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is enabling sheriff personnel to effectively capture and respond to both commendations and complaints received as part of the Personnel history Index initiative within the department. • Riverside County Economic Development Agency. In an effort to reduce ongoing system maintenance costs, the agency is leveraging Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to deliver a facilities management solution. The solution will manage all county buildings and will enable county employees to submit service request tickets that will be routed to the appropriate technicians based on service areas and skillsets to help ensure that requests are handled properly and according to county standards. • Sound Transit. Created to provide safe and reliable bus and train service in the Puget Sound area, Sound Transit selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to manage its customer service, community outreach and communications activities. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online enables Sound Transit to leverage existing cloud investments and will effectively track information about customers and projects to help ensure all members of the organization are informed about customer interactions. • Bureau of Indian Affairs. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, social workers at the Bureau of Indian Affairs will be able to deliver programs more effectively than before in some of the most isolated and economically depressed areas of the United States. The impact goes far beyond business efficiency to deliver an enhanced welfare and benefits program experience. • USCIS. Microsoft Dynamics CRM was selected as the platform to modernize USCIS due to its flexibility and rapid time-to-value, which is critical to the success of the USCIS’s immigration verification program. The overall USCIS strategy leverages information, talent, process and technology to understand, better serve and manage the verification program’s constituents. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a critical component to making the program successful. • California Department of Financial Institutions. By deploying a cloud-based solution running on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the California Department of Financial Institutions can now provide greater focus on serving the constituents in California with its public records tracker. Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, many processes have been streamlined and the department has become a much more productive organization than before. Staff members are very confident that they are able to complete their work more efficiently. • Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC). The IDOC leverages Microsoft Dynamics CRM as an enterprise offender management solution to provide a comprehensive, cost-effective set of tools and technologies to help improve coordination and management of information and services within the department. The solution is built on existing investments and provides a connected, scalable platform to combine data from multiple sources and create an electronic master file to provide a single, departmentwide view of inmates. • Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The county has implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM and configured the solution to meet the needs of vehicle inspection, nurse workload and communicable disease tracking, as well as the labeling of prescriptions. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM it now takes nurses only two days to learn the system versus the six months that it used to take. The result has sharply increased productivity and the county’s ability to rapidly deliver care. With the built-in audit trails in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the department can capture a record of every instance someone looks at or changes a patient case record, which helps the county easily comply with HIPAA. • New York State Office For People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD). OPWDD’s new case management solution, built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and in partnership with Mid-America Consulting Group, allows people with disabilities and their families to be more proactive in their service decisions by creating an electronic record for private and public-sector agencies to share case-specific information in real time. The ability to link directly into legacy systems and leverage existing platforms is significant in integrating information from both old and new systems. In addition to the ability to support better decisions about services that people need, the solution improves business practices with enhanced audit and accounting abilities. The solution is a critical component in transforming the way the department conducts business. Education • LSU AgCenter. The LSU AgCenter, tasked with providing citizens with research-based educational information on agriculture, wanted an easier and more efficient way to report on business practices and help demonstrate compliance with government requirements. In addition, the university needed a lower-cost, less burdensome solution to assess the effectiveness of its outreach programs. To address this challenge, the LSU AgCenter deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM and tailored the solution to the needs of its outreach programs. Now, with one system in place, the LSU AgCenter has eased government reporting, providing reports on an as-needed basis; improved business insight; and eased its development and IT support requirements. • National Heritage Academies. National Heritage Academies is making significant progress in helping children fulfill their promise and potential. At the foundation of that progress is Microsoft Dynamics CRM. National Heritage Academies is now better able to foster more meaningful, substantive conversations around ways to enhance student learning experiences. Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the organization is using data to track teacher activities and performance, resulting in analyses that help guide the future performance of teachers and programs. Its process now has a platform to change the analysis from a qualitative, subjective evaluation to relevant, actionable insights. With this information, National Heritage Academies is achieving a higher level of accountability, linking all its activities directly to student achievement. More information about Microsoft Dynamics and how it can help organizations achieve their goals can be found by visiting the dedicated solution websites for government, education and healthcareorganizations.

News Release from the FBI, Kansas City Division

Owner, Managers of Sedalia Firm Indicted for Defrauding Customers by Selling Immigration Forms Available for Free from the Government

U.S. Attorney’s Office February 21, 2012

Western District of Missouri (816) 426-3122

— filed under: Fraud, Press Release

JEFFERSON CITY, MO—Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that the owner and two managers of a Sedalia, Mo., business have been indicted by a federal grand jury for their roles in a conspiracy to defraud consumers who purchased immigration forms that were available at no charge from the federal government.

Thomas Joseph Strawbridge, 49, Thomas Barret Laurence, also known as Thomas Barnes, Thomas Laurente and Thomas Johnson, 30, and Elizabeth Lindsey Meredith, 24, all formerly of Sedalia, were charged in a 14-count indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Jefferson City, Mo., on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012. That indictment was unsealed and made public today upon Strawbridge’s arrest and initial court appearance.

According to the federal indictment, Strawbridge founded and owned Immigration Forms and Publications (IFP) in Sedalia. Laurence managed the day-to-day operations of IFP and Meredith assisted Laurence.
The indictment alleges that, from March 2009 to April 2011, Strawbridge, Laurence and Meredith participated in a conspiracy to defraud consumers who were seeking assistance with immigration-related matters by inducing them to purchase government immigration forms that were available from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at no charge. They allegedly gave consumers the false impression that the company was affiliated with the federal government and that sales representatives were government agents.
IFP advertised immigration services on the Internet, the indictment says, particularly through search engines such as Google. Websites directed consumers to call a toll-free number, where they were connected to IFP sales representatives, including Laurence and Meredith. IFP sales representatives allegedly answered calls by saying “agent” followed by their first name. IFP employees, in subsequent conversations with customers, allegedly referred to a sales representative as an “immigration agent.”

Sales representatives spoke with potential customers and attempted to determine which government form best matched each caller’s immigration situation. According to the indictment, these sales representatives had no particular expertise in immigration matters and sometimes sent customers the wrong form for their situation. Other customers allegedly received none of the promised assistance from IFP in completing their immigration forms.

IFP sales representatives, including Laurence and Meredith, allegedly made materially false statements to customers, including claims that IFP handled excess call volume related to immigration matters for USCIS, that fees paid to IFP included government application and processing fees, and that forms purchased through IFP would be processed more quickly than if customers dealt directly with USCIS.

According to the indictment, IFP sales representatives explained that the company would send the forms via FedEx to the customer’s address and help the customer correctly fill out the forms. The customer would pay IFP up front by giving a money order to FedEx upon receipt of the forms. IFP sales representatives allegedly quoted prices for the various immigration forms that were the same or similar to government processing fees for the same forms. For example, the USCIS fee to process an Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card (I-90 form) was $290. IFP charged $290 to send customers an I-90 form, according to the indictment.
Many customers who sent their forms to USCIS were surprised to learn that the fees they already paid IFP did not cover government processing charges. None of the money that customers sent to IFP went toward government processing fees, the indictment says, and IFP sales representatives did not inform consumers that USCIS routinely charged processing fees, which they would be required to pay in addition to IFP charges.
In addition to the conspiracy, Strawbridge, Laurence and Meredith are charged with six counts of mail fraud and seven counts of wire fraud.

The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation, which would require Strawbridge, Laurence and Meredith to forfeit to the government any property derived from the proceeds of the alleged violations.

Phillips cautioned that the charges contained in this indictment are simply accusations, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charges must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony P. Gonzalez and Trial Attorneys Alan Phelps and Adrienne Fowler of the U.S. Department of Justice Consumer Protection Branch. It was investigated by the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Missouri Secretary of State Corporate Division, the Missouri Secretary of State Securities Division and the Missouri Attorney General’s Office.