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People
count in government. Therefore, election campaigns
now underway for governor, lieutenant governor,
attorney general and delegates really do matter.
Be sure to vote in one primary or another on June
14. But systems may matter even more. That’s why
the transformations now underway in Virginia
government driven by the Virginia Information
Technologies Agency (VITA) may be more critical to
the Commonwealth’s future than who happens to
hold elective office any one particular day.
VITA
was born of legislation passed in 2003. The
negotiations needed to bring General Assembly
leaders, Gov. Mark R. Warner, then Secretary of
Technology George Newstrom and others together
were sometimes fast, always furious. Who would
have power was often a larger barrier to consensus
than how a new agency actually might
perform. Government administrators pitched
“something new” as the next logical step away
from the limitations of the program budgeting
models of the 1980s and agency-based strategic
planning process of the 1990s. They pointed to a
services-based planning and performance-based
budgeting system.
Despite
continuing differences of opinion on many matters,
VITA stood up on July 1, 2003 as a modest new
entity. VITA immediately consolidated three
different organizations, 600 personal computers,
100 servers and 383 employees. But the vision was
something much more ambitious. VITA was to create
an information technology utility for most of
state government. VITA was to consolidate
executive agency IT resources and move beyond
traditional procurement to strategic sourcing.
Almost
two years later, VITA reports success in these
tasks. As noted in recent briefings before its own
board and General Assembly groups, VITA has
consolidated the information technology assets of
90 organizations working with 60,000 personal
computers and 3,000 servers in 1,497 locations.
VITA now employs 1,081 technology professionals.
It remains one of the most comprehensive
initiatives of the administration of Gov. Warner
and its performance even after he leaves office in
2006 will be an important part of his legacy to
the state.
The
transformation of the delivery of Virginia
government services, in fact, will roll out
steadily over the next seven to 10 years. In
election time, that means three more governors
will have the chance to help these transformations
work over four or five biennial budget cycles of
the General Assembly. But what exactly is the
value to the Commonwealth that would have VITA
command the attention of all these once and future
leaders?
First,
VITA notes, there already is improved governance
and oversight of Virginia information technology
investments. An exemplary IT Investment Board that
includes seasoned IT industry executives and a
chief information officer reporting to the board
have worked, sometimes with almost smothering
attention from the General Assembly, to prioritize
technology investments, improve project oversight
and management and update the state’s strategic
IT plan in light of breakthroughs in equipment,
software and applications. VITA was never to be
about saving money by spending less. It has been
about improving service delivery and avoiding
wasteful, redundant spending.
So,
VITA now provides 100 interactive government
services online. It estimates that about 35
percent of the more than 32 million accesses last
year via the virginia.gov portal occurred outside
normal business hours. That’s 24/7 government
service. Efficiencies allowed the agency to
provide about $1.5 million in free services to the
State Board of Elections and about $1.3 million
annually in free Web design, hosting and other
services for agencies lacking IT resources.
VITA
has built value in other ways, too, with
localities and state agencies. No disruption of
services has occurred in two years, even to those
offices and agencies involved in moves as a result
of the Capitol renovation project. Okay, there
were a couple of glitches, like that thing with
the Governor’s e-mail that no one talks about,
but that wasn’t a real disruption. VITA
documents about $8 million in cost savings to
localities and established E-Rate accounts for 36
school districts and library systems.
Now
VITA is close to completing its evaluation of two
sets of initiatives from the private sector to
continue to improve the Commonwealth’s
enterprise infrastructure (such as voice and data
networks, data centers and help desk centers) and
enterprise applications (such as human resource
and financial management, accounting and
procurement). The Commonwealth hopes to negotiate
“PPEA” agreements with industry leaders, such
as IBM, Northrup Grumman and CGI-AMS, before the
year is out.
And
why is “enterprise business architecture”
important to the Commonwealth? VITA will have the
opportunity to consolidate the operations of the
30 different agencies issuing licenses and permits
in their own way now, the 39 different ways grants
are administered, the 73 different ways budget
activities may be conducted, the 44 different
agencies that collect user fees and so forth. It
is the way, as the Auditor of Public Accounts has
suggested, that the business of government will
drive IT decisions, not the other way around.
Better
citizen service, new economic development
opportunities and more cost savings for localities
are three good reasons to “expect the best”
from an enterprise-wide look. But there is a
fourth. In the words of the the Department of
Planning and Budget, VITA’s enterprise look can
support a system that is effective and efficient
enough to transcend administrations. So, even if a
governor cannot succeed himself or herself in
Virginia, a governor’s successes can.
Increasingly VITA is looking like a success every
governor from Mark Warner forward will claim.
--
June 6, 2005
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