California IT Strategic Plan Released

California's CIO and Gov. Schwarzenegger's Special Advisor on Information Technology, Clark Kelso, has released the state's Information Technology Strategic Plan. The plan outlines the future of IT in California.

Kelso states, "The plan will guide the acquisition, management and use of technology within the executive branch of state government for the next five years."

The report from Kelso's office outlines the problems facing California IT and the solutions the CIO's office proposes. California's systems are antiquated and the current use of IT within the state has a decisively government focus, rather than being built for customer convenience, according to Kelso's office. "(The state's) heavy reliance on outdated legacy systems and a decentralized, non-standardized technology architecture dissipates limited dollars and human resources. This situation exposes the state to higher overall operational costs and increased vulnerabilities to security threats and architecture breakdowns."

To offset these factors and to modernize California's IT framework, Kelso's office suggests six goals that will be accomplished in the next five years. Each goal will create new opportunities for vendors looking to do business with the state. The goals are listed below, with likely opportunities as projected by Center for Digital Government researchers.

Goal 1: Make Services More Accessible to Citizens and State Clients
"The State will complete a customer-focused, technology-enabled transformation in service delivery to improve the accessibility, value and cost-effectiveness of services, benefits and information provided to the public, businesses, other government agencies and state employees."

Center researchers project that this goal will create a new position under the state CIO that will review and create new business processes for e-government applications. This goal will also create multiple projects focused on delivery of services to citizens and businesses. Projects may include licensing, workers compensation, electronic payment, or consumer protection systems. In connection with this, Kelso's office will propose legislation that allows electronic payments without passing charges on to the consumer.

This goal will create opportunities for systems to deliver services and information to other government agencies. This may include data sharing, service eligibility determination, online grant processing, Web page redesign, or human resource transaction systems.

The state will develop a new state portal to meet these goals. An RFP for this project will be released around July 2005.

The State Controller's Office will develop an interface project for the 21st Century Human Resources and Payroll Project. The interface will allow data sharing among statewide agencies to avoid duplication.

Goal 2: Implement Common Business Applications and Systems to Improve Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness
"The State will replace duplicate, conflicting and outdated applications and systems with common solutions that are interoperable enterprise-wide across all departments in the executive branch of state government."

Kelso's office plans to implement an enterprise, integrated e-procurement solution. The specifics on this project will be released by June 2005. However, Center researchers believe that this may only be an expansion of the existing Cal-Buy solution and not a new project.

Goal 3: Ensure State Technology Systems are Secure and Privacy is Protected
"The state will conduct rigorous security assessments, participate in comprehensive homeland security exercises and evaluations, adopt secure architectures, and mitigate risks to its systems and infrastructure."

The Center believes that opportunities for security products will become available as the state assesses its current IT security. The state will develop a plan and adopt standards in regards to IT security. Vendors may be able to help develop this plan and position themselves for future opportunities.

Goal 4: Lower Costs and Improve the Security, Reliability and Performance of the State's IT Infrastructure
"The state will develop a statewide Enterprise