Approved: February 5, 2007
Date
MINUTES OF THE HOUSE GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
The meeting was called to order by Chairman Jim Morrison at 3:33 P.M. on January 30, 2007, in Room 526-S of the Capitol.
All members were present except Representatives Wilk, Siegfreid, and Tafanelli; all were excused.
Committee staff present:
Mary Galligan, Kansas Legislative Research
Tatiana Lin, Kansas Legislative Research
Renae Jefferies, Office of Revisor of Statutes
Gary Deeter, Committee Assistant
Conferees appearing before the committee:
Denise Moore, Executive Chief Information Technology Officer
Bill Roth, Kansas Chief Information Technology Architect
Others attending:
See attached list.
The minutes for January 25 were approved. (Motion and second, Representatives Ruiz and McLachlan)
Denise Moore, Executive Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO), and Bill Roth, Kansas Chief Information Architect (CITA), resumed a report on the governance structure for IT (Information Technology) in the state (Attachment 1). Ms. Moore reviewed the Strategic Information Management (SIM) plan, which sets the direction for IT in the state and from which agencies derive their three-year project and budget plans. The foundation of the SIM Plan is the architecture and standards which all projects must follow.
Mr. Roth resumed his briefing, noting that the CITA assesses trends, such as changes in hardware (servers, storage options) and changes in state budgets compared with IT expenditures (currently IT requires 1.55% of the state budget, excluding staff salaries).
Ms. Moore explained the agency project approval process (developed in 1999), saying that any agency with an IT project costing over $250,000 must follow a specified procedure, with required quarterly reports tracking a project’s status. She stated that the Kansas Information Technology Office(KITO) has developed a 120-hour training course to certify project managers, a course which since 1999 has trained 294 certified project managers, the result of which presently allows 30 agency IT projects to be guided by certified project managers. She noted a nearly completed draft document outlining ways to improve project efficiency and broaden applications. Regarding success rates, she reported that the Standish Group provided statistics showing that nationally 52% of projects will cost 189% of the original estimates, that 31% of projects are cancelled before completion, and that only 16% of large-scale projects are completed on time and within budget parameters. By contrast in Kansas, project costs range from 90% to 100% of estimated costs and only 2% of projects have been cancelled before completion. Answering a question, she said most states exercise some oversight over projects, but Kansas provides continuous oversight: from inception to continuous project monitoring, allowing intervention and mitigation of risks to assure more successful outcomes. She replied that every project includes a PIER (Post-Implementation Evaluation Report) review to identify strengths and weaknesses, information that helps guide future project plans.
Responding to another question, Ms. Moore said a flow chart tracks projects as follows:
• An agency sees a need for a new project and submits the concept to the CITO;
• A high-level approval is given for the project, after which the agency does a needs assessment and/or a feasibility study;
• The agency develops specifications for the project, which create an RFP (Request for Proposal) to submit to prospective vendors;
• Responses to the RFP determine whether the project is aligned with cost estimates. If so, the project goes forward, with the agency awarding a contract to a vendor. This contract triggers active monitoring of the project by KITO;
• The certified project managers do not automate bureaucracy, but develop an appropriate business plan, which includes a return-on-investment analysis;
• When the project is completed, the PIER review takes place.
Mr. Roth explained the process of building the enterprise architecture system, noting that the federal model for IT architecture was scaled down to state size. He said that the architecture helps identify commonalities
across state government and develop a basis for future shared interests; he listed five models used to create the enterprise architecture, which aligns the enterprise with federal models and offer significant data to show where agency business activity warrants coordination and collaboration. He commented that the architecture includes strategies addressing service delivery: government-to-citizen, government-to-business, government-to-vendor, government-to-local-units-of-government, and government-to-other-states.
Explaining current architecture development, he said 86 individuals from 20 agencies are working to move all state agencies from isolated systems to business service-delivery orientation. He cited the licensing process as an example of how licensing entities, all of whom offer a similar service, could build a unified system to issue licenses. Answering a question, Mr. Roth said the architecture is built to reflect the state’s Strategic IT Plan, which includes relational databases enabling agency systems to communicate with each other and with the federal government. Ms. Moore cited HAVA (Help America Vote Act), a federally funded initiative that centralized the disparate counties’ databases; the system was built in cooperation with the Department of Revenue, which already had a communication system with every county. The system also is tied to the Department of Corrections and the Division of Vital Statistics in the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Responding to questions and concerns, Mr. Roth gave an example of an upgrade for the Criminal Justice Information System; he said the principals discovered that no one person had the entire picture, but together they were able to make the system better. Ms. Moore cited a similar occurrence at the Kansas Water Office.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 5, 2007.