Budget plan would improve coordination of state's information technology system; Union considers implementation impact of moving staff from DAS to OBM

April 23, 2007 - Gov. Ted Strickland's plan to move the Office of Information Technology to the Office of Budget and Management would recognize the importance of IT in the delivery of state services, centralize IT resources, reduce the use of private contractors, and decrease system redundancies.

“We believe it’s extraordinarily important to build the capacity of our state to manage IT functions,” OBM Director Pari Sabety told legislators. “It should be managed by people with a fiduciary responsibility to the state rather than a fiduciary responsibility to an outside consultant.”

OCSEA is working with management to represent the interests of affected union members. In fact, the OCSEA IT Committee will meet this week with Chief Information Officer Steve Edmonson to seek more information and discuss the union's concerns about the plan.

Gongwer News Service reported on Friday, April 20, that the House GOP leadership applied some extra scrutiny to the governor's proposal when Speaker Pro Tempore Kevin DeWine introduced a separate bill (HB 135) containing the same statutory language that’s in the budget measure (HB 119).

Sabety and Edmonson testified before the finance committee last week, expressing overall support for the governor's budget language despite the need for some technical modifications related to implementation timing.

Sabety, a government technology expert, said the rationale for the switch stems from the fact that the state spends some $800 million a year on information technology, “Yet we have not reaped the benefits of that investment.”

The Gongwer reported,

Looking to address years of uncoordinated IT purchases by various agencies that have resulted in multiple system types that don’t work together, the administration looks to follow a national trend of more closely linking technology and budget functions, Ms. Sabety said. Currently, 18 states have made similar mergers.

The IT/budget link is especially prudent given the fact that technology purchases have long-term implications and agencies get “locked in” to specific software, the director said. “We need to better align our budget and technology planning.”

Future cost savings would be realized mostly on the infrastructure side and no staff reductions were planned at this time in regards to some 350 information technology personnel that work in various state agencies, Mr. Edmonson said. Those workers are often specialists in their particular agency’s business.

Ms. Sabety said direct OBM control of OIT would provide “more teeth” to the budget office’s directives in regards to information technology because the state would have better control of the spending.

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Citing an example of an outside contractor being hired to watch over another outside contractor’s practices, Ms. Sabety said she hopes to instead build IT expertise within state government to bolster such ongoing projects as the Ohio Administrative Knowledge System (OAKS) while saving money in the process.

See Related

Union Toolbox for IT move from DAS to OBM

HB 119 - Budget Bill which includes language to move IT services from DAS to OBM

HB 135 - A separate bill containing the same statutory language that’s in the budget measure