It is that time of the year where all state agencies need to submit their state budget requests for the next fiscal year—and of course, this includes funding for IT services, equipment, and projects.
ITS was not satisfied with the process used in previous years where customers were not given much detail, and some information was provided late in the process not giving customers much time to submit their requests to the Department of Financial Management (DFM). So, ITS vowed to do better.
Last fall, a small group of ITS staff assembled from the fiscal, enterprise architecture, quality service delivery, and data and spatial services teams and met weekly to discuss challenges, needs, workflows and solutions. This work culminated in an online “budget packet” for each customer agency.
Access to the budget packet online application was distributed to customers at the end of May which allowed time for feedback and collaboration to make any necessary changes before agency budget requests were due. The feedback from customers has been positive and appreciative.
The new budget packets also made it easier to have constructive conversations and work more collaboratively with DFM and the Legislative Services Office. Importantly, it has helped bring to light the amount of technical debt in IT equipment across the state, and it has prompted discussions for long-term funding solutions.
The team at ITS has continued work on the budget packet project with plans for version 2.0 to be used next spring for that budget cycle. The project has a multi-year timeline including ongoing collaboration with vested partners as ITS matures centralized data systems for hardware and software asset management. This moves the project from the heavy lift of the first year to a significantly automated process in the future.
