Government Technology - March 2008 - (Page 22)

C I O, M I SS O U R I DANROSS Missouri CIO Dan Ross is proud of his state’s unique IT job “recruitment island” in Second Life, the popular 3-D virtual world built and maintained by users. But he’s just as excited about another, decidedly low-tech innovation from his office: pocket-sized cheat sheets for lawmakers. “We pull statistics together for legislators about what IT delivers to constituents in their specific districts,” Ross said. “For every member of the Missouri House and Senate budget committees, we’ve got little laminated cards that tell them how many of their constituents were able to file their taxes online in fiscal 2007; how many people were able to access state jobs information via different state Web portals; how many folks received professional certification, like podiatrists or embalmers; how many teachers were licensed; even employment claims by their constituents.” It’s those kind of low-cost, high-impact advances that Ross has strived for since Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt appointed him state CIO in 2005. For the past three years, Ross has spearheaded the governor’s technology consolidation initiative that merged 1,200 employees across 14 Cabinet-level departments. In fiscal 2007, Missouri finished bringing the IT budgets of those agencies into a single entity, the Missouri Information Technology Services Division, which is within the state Office of Administration. “That was a huge culture change, and brought fear and gnashing of teeth by those agencies that have been building their own budgets for the last 30 years,” Ross said. “All of a sudden, at the governor’s direction, they had to transfer all of those funds out of their agencies into a centralized IT function.” The consolidation streamlined the state’s IT budget and staff — $6 million was trimmed and re-appropriated, and 50 jobs were slashed. At the same time, the state’s IT processes, such as purchasing and software rollouts, are more efficient. “It’s not all about cost savings either. Now, we talk in terms of value,” he said. Missouri’s Recruitment island is located in Second Life, the popular 3-D virtual world. T O P 25 D O E R S D R E A M E R S A N D D R I V E R S “We’ve signed a contract with AT&T for a next-generation network. They’ll manage the state’s network for us, which means we’ll have access to all current and new technology, and then we also get the redundancy and backup of a utility-class carrier that the state couldn’t afford to do on its own.” Missouri signed on with AT&T in 2007, and the state is currently negotiating with the vendor about how and where those services will be used. MATT WILLIAMS, STAFF WRITER D E PU T Y C I O, M I SS O U R I BILLBOTT If Missouri CIO Dan Ross is the visionary, Deputy CIO of Operations Bill Bott is the architect that makes the vision a reality. But maybe that’s a bit grandiose. “We’re pretty much joined at the hip,” Bott said. the Year Award for his efforts to improve systems and reduce operating expenses while working for the U.S. Department of Defense. Bott said that in 2007, Missouri finished implementation of “business-type processes” service-level agreements with our department customers. We’re in a consolidated environment so we provide the IT support for the executive branch departments, and it’s all based on service levels that run through my office.” The state’s IT consolidation initiative has been deemed a smashing success, although there were a few hiccups along the way. Measurements and personnel changes took much longer than Bott thought they would. This year the state’s Information Technology Services Division is working on enterprise application development for the state’s agencies. There’s also ongoing haggling over money matters. “One of the things that makes Missouri different is we consolidated all of the IT budgets in one giant pot,” he said. “That becomes a giant [political] target for cuts. So there have been some challenges with that budget and how to overcome those challenges.” MATT WILLIAMS, STAFF WRITER “We can look at measures of our network, applications, mainframe environment — an enterprise look at that for the whole state. That was a big task to do.” Bott is in charge of strategic planning and project management as the state continues and expands its IT consolidation initiative that merged operations for Missouri’s 14 executive branch departments. Last year he was one of nine government leaders to win Governing magazine’s Public Officials of the Year award. In 1996 he earned the Air Force Civilian of MAR_08 for the state’s IT operations. For the first time, Missouri has an enterprise measurement system that reports how well the state’s IT systems are functioning. “We can look at measures of our network, applications, mainframe environment — an enterprise look at that for the whole state. That was a big task to do,” he said. “The other part of that is we use those measurements for our 22 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - March 2008

Government Technology - March 2008 Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile On the Scene Four Questions for... Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers Let's [Not] Get Physical No Data Left Behind Conservation King Community Drug Test Reinventing the System Better Late Than Never Closing the Deal Spectrum Products Personal Computing signal:noise Digital Communities The Expanding Focus of Digital Communities The Digital Imperative Hot Fusion Redefining Municipal Wireless Made in the USA Bridge Detectives The 2008 Agenda

Government Technology - March 2008

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