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<b>Small Business Grants</b>. The Small Business Administration is accepting proposals from state and local agencies, colleges and universities, and Small Business Development Centers in 23 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico on how they would provide technical assistance to small technology companies.
. The Small Business Administration is accepting proposals from state and local agencies, colleges and universities, and Small Business Development Centers in 23 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico on how they would provide technical assistance to small technology companies.The awards will be made for one year on a matching basis in a ratio of 2:1 federal to nonfederal funds.Eligible states are Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.SBA is asking for one proposal per state, which should include an original signed letter of endorsement from the governor, or mayor for D.C. The deadline is May 12.For a copy of the grant application visit .. Sacramento County, Calif., recently made all 40 of its Web sites more accessible to disabled users by adding a text-only option for all content.The text-only alternative removes all graphics and pictures, making navigation and page viewing easier for accessibility software, personal digital assistants and cell phones.County IT workers added the text-only option to the site in less than a week using the Lift Text Transcoder program from UsableNet Inc. of New York. The program resides on the Web server and automatically generates a text-only view of the site's pages. In addition to offering text-only pages, Sacramento added a webcast of local cable access channel programs, including board of supervisors meetings and other public events.. Montana has awarded an $8.3 million contract for services under the state's Medicaid program to Affiliated Computer Services of Dallas.The company will install a decision support system as well as continue to provide the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services with Medicaid administrative services support.The decision support system will let department managers perform complex analyses of Medicaid expenditures and usage. The system includes a comprehensive database with about 750 data fields and more than 80 million Medicaid claims going back to 1985.Analysts will access the database using ACS's proprietary query tool, which offers advanced data analysis, reporting and graphics features. Access to the database will be tightly controlled.ACS will continue to provide administrative, fiscal agent and health information analysis. These services range from claims processing and administration of Medicaid management information systems to fraud and abuse protection and collection of accounts receivable.
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