| California CIO J. Clark Kelso |
For starters, there were over 125 separate e-mail systems across California state government, said Kelso at a recent e-government meeting sponsored by Sacramento County. The state is still trying to correct that and to communicate enterprise-wide.
And the state's portal failed to meet expectations. "It turns out when I got there and started looking at it there were only a handful of departments that actually were on the portal infrastructure."
In addition, the portal technology was very sophisticated. "So sophisticated," said Kelso, "that absent the consultant developers who built it, we are unable to develop on that system.
"Long term, you don't want to be in a position of having your IT -- particularly a Web site -- be so complex that you can't develop it yourself," Kelso said. "Unless you're going to outsource the whole thing ... you've got to have infrastructure that you can maintain and develop. Because you're going to need to do that day in and day out."
Another problem area for the state was its contracts with vendors. It was just after the contracting flap in which the purchase of database licenses brought an investigation by the California Legislature. As a result of the dustup, the state began to review its contracts. "A lot of them were small-dollar contracts month-to-month," said Kelso. "Every six weeks we had a new contract with a consultant. And when you put it all together you suddenly realized you were spending $15 million on this infrastructure." This was happening without appearing in the budget process, said Kelso.
Two years later, and under a new administration, Kelso is still dealing with some of the same problems. However, he has enlisted the help of the California Performance Review (CPR) to help define and forward a more unified state IT strategy. The state's IT plan was released on Nov. 1 of this year, and while waiting for the governor's signature, Kelso is moving ahead on it.
The CPR points out the need for state agencies to transform their operations by flattening the organizational structure and organizing more by function.
According to Kelso, while state Web sites were "a disaster;" county Web sites are much more citizen-centric. He said the state needs to Web-enable, call-center enable and fax-enable services. He cited the Roseville Galleria mall in Northern California calling for the creation of a "Government Galleria," a one-stop services and information shop for California residents. He noted existing state systems that are more citizen-centric, such as the Franchise Tax Board, with its online e-file service; the California Department of Corporations and the state's use of electronic benefit transfer cards.
Next Steps
Kelso mentioned the need for "strategic sourcing" or smarter procurement in California. He wants to standardize the technology the state is buying in order to simplify the process and save money. "We're probably paying 20-25 percent too high," he said. He's also looking at how the purchasing power of the state can be made available at the local level. He's looking forward to working with county and city IT departments on this and other initiatives.
Other projects include IT and business process consolidation across the state.
