8FEEF9D9F9C82EA987258457005380B1 Hearing Summary

Kachina Weaver, Deputy Legislative Director, Governor's Office, provided an introduction to the supplemental request from the Governor's Office of Information Technology (OIT) to create and fund a Colorado Digital Service.

Ms. Weaver was joined at the table by:

- Theresa Szczurek, Executive Director for OIT;

- David McCurdy, Chief Technology Officer for OIT;

- Kelly Taylor, Digital Services; and

- Matthew McAllister, Digital Services.

A copy of the presentation slides are provided in Attachment A. Additionally, a fact sheet was also provided to the committee (Attachment B).

Director Szczurek provided an overview of several initiatives that have been implemented at OIT to examine what is working and where changes need to be made moving forward for the various state information technology (IT) projects.

Six common factors were identified that caused major IT projects to have issues in the past:

1. not having clear executive sponsorship and governance;

2. unclear or shifting requirements or project creep;

3. incomplete funding;

4. lack of best practices being implemented because of the timeline or budget (e.g., dropping IV&V);

5. lack of dedicated resources for major elements; and

6. not following IT standards and architecture (e.g., accessibility, vendor selection).

Director Szczurek discussed the components of Senate Bill 19-169 and how they are currently in place or being implemented in current and future projects.

Director Szczurek and Ms. Weaver responded to questions from the committee regarding the need for a Colorado Digital Service.

Ms. Weaver continued the presentation regarding how the Colorado Digital Service would operate.

Mr. McAllister described what a Digital Service team is and how the same initiative has been implemented in other countries and at the federal level.

Mr. Taylor described how a Digital Service can complement the current state IT workforce.

Ms. Weaver continued the presentation by describing the impact of a Digital Service.

Mr. Taylor described the origin of the U.S. Digital Service and the work on healthcare.gov.  Mr. Taylor continued by describing the work on the pilot project to examine the HRWorks project. The individuals at the table responded to questions from the committee related to Digital Services in other states and the need for a Colorado Digital Service, how conflict of interest is managed, how other departments have handled the assistance from the Digital Service team, how Digital Service team members are recruited, and how quickly a Colorado Digital Service can be implemented.

Director Szczurek continued the presentation with a description of why immediate funding is needed through the supplemental process.

The committee requested regular updates back to the JTC regarding when recommendations from the Colorado Digital Service are implemented.

Ms. Weaver described the timeline and why this budget request wasn't made during the legislative session.

Mr. McAllister described additional private funding that may be available to help supplement the state funding.

The committee decided to continue discussing the decision about whether to recommend funding the supplemental request until the end of the agenda.