STRATEGIC PLAN
As the first step in addressing these
challenges, a working group was established on June 1, 2002, to
develop Virginia’s strategic plan for technology.
Released on September 25, 2002, Virginia in the Global Digital
Economy, articulated the vision to establish Virginia as a
global leader in the use of technology in government. The
plan outlined four major initiatives to increase the quantity
and quality of services available to citizens on the Internet,
to consolidate IT infrastructure, and provide centralized
services as a technology utility, to develop a capital planning
and funding process and governance model for IT investment, and
to leverage Virginia’s buying power by implementing a
best practices model for IT procurement.
The next step, was “due
diligence” on our part to collect, verify, and analyze
information on IT resources in Virginia state government.
And what were the results?
The due diligence analysis confirmed that
Virginia does not leverage its significant buying power.
State government agencies and organizations invest
millions of dollars in stand alone systems. The IT
resources are allocated inefficiently. The analysis also
provided accurate answers to Governor Warner’s original
questions: Virginia spends $902 million (including
colleges and universities) annually on IT, and employs 2,580 IT
professionals.
In December 2002, Governor Warner
unveiled the details of bold IT reform legislation. With
some amendments, the significant bills passed the state
legislature in February 2003. There are three major
aspects of the legislation. First, it consolidates IT
services and IT employees into a single agency, the Virginia
Information Technologies Agency (VITA). With the
creation of VITA, three state agencies were abolished and the
independent IT divisions within 94 Executive branch agencies
(excluding colleges and universities) are consolidated into
VITA.
THE CONSOLIDATED RESULT
The new agency called VITA currently has
about 350 employees. That number will grow to
approximately 1,300 employees at the end of the 18 month
integration schedule (January
photo1857.jpg)
The author is the Secretary of Technology
for the Commonwealth of Virginia. He acknowledges the
help of Judy Napier in helping to prepare this article.
Secretary Newstrom was previously with EDS, a leading
global information technology services company.
ne of the
nation’s most aggres- sive and comprehensive reforms of information technology (IT) in state government started with two simple questions. At the start of his administration, Governor Mark R. Warner asked, first, “How much money does Virginia state government spend annually on IT?” Another question was, “How many IT professionals does Virginia employ?”
These questions seem simple and
straightforward enough, right? Apparently not in
Virginia’s highly decentralized environment. The
answers he found were far from precise. Initial
estimates of Virginia’s annual IT expenses ranged from
$800 million to $1.2 billion. The initial estimate of the
number of state IT employees ranged from 2,000 to 3,000
individuals.
In addition to a lack of accurate data on
IT “spend and employment levels,” Virginia faced
other significant challenges, including the largest cumulative
budget deficit in Virginia’s history. The $3.8
billion deficit grew to nearly $6 billion (for a $50 billion
biennial state budget) during the first six months of the
Governor’s administration. Furthermore, numerous
reports detailing costly IT project failures, mismanagement of
major projects, unnecessary duplication of effort, and
inefficient allocation of resources abounded. And with
new demands in the areas of information security and homeland
security, electronic government, integration of systems, and an
aging workforce, it became clear that Virginia needed a plan
for technology.
