The administrative order calls for the Office of Enterprise Technology to "perform the following support functions for the Department of Revenue: data center operations, software licenses, network operations, back-up and recovery, and storage and server management." As part of the order, related Department of Revenue employees, data center equipment, software licenses, and other vendor contracts will be transferred to the Office of Enterprise Technology (OET).
The reorganization is part of Minnesota's Drive to Excellence strategy and is aimed at improving the capability and effectiveness of information technology services to state agencies and citizens. The Department of Revenue -- long recognized for its excellence in adopting and managing technology -- has been actively working with OET to develop and implement detailed plans in the areas outlined in the administrative order. Cross-agency teams worked to lay out the roles, responsibilities, service level expectations, and resources needed for a transfer of IT service delivery from an internal Department of Revenue operation to an enterprise service delivered centrally by OET.
Department of Revenue Commissioner Dan Salomone said the reorganization is the result of a group of committed and dedicated employees from separate state agencies working together to build a foundation for the changing the way the IT services are delivered.
"It sets the stage for the delivery of IT services in a more effective and less costly way within state government and permits agencies to concentrate on their core business processes," he said. "For the Department of Revenue this means helping citizens fulfill their tax obligations and enforcement of the state tax laws."
"What we have in place is a scaleable central infrastructure," explained Gopal Khanna, State CIO. "The addition of resources from Revenue further enhances OET's capacity to serve other state agencies so that they can focus on mission-critical business re-engineering and systems modernization efforts that will improve service to Minnesota citizens."
The administrative order is the first implementation phase of a service-level agreement between the two agencies that outlines processes and ensures that the Department of Revenue will receive equal or better service than it currently receives from its own internal service operation, including more hours of coverage, deeper back-up resources, and additional technical skills. The service level agreement will be refined over the next few weeks. In this first phase, the Revenue staff will be fully integrated into the OET structure but most will remain housed at the Department of Revenue where they will focus initially on service delivery to the department. In future stages, the staff will be moved physically to OET.
