Goodyear IT unveils FY26 strategic plan prioritizing cybersecurity, staff training and automation

Lisa Faizan, the city’s chief information officer, presented the fiscal‑year 2026 IT strategic plan to the Goodyear City Council on Sept. 15, outlining priorities for cybersecurity, workforce development, software optimization, process automation and data governance.

The plan covers a rolling three‑year period, FY2026–FY2028, and, Faizan said, “addresses technology implementation” with initiatives to “provide a reliable and secure technology foundation for delivery of municipal services through collaboration with stakeholders.” She told council the FY25 program completed 20 projects, promoted eight IT staff internally and identified more than $30,000 in annual savings from consolidating duplicate software.

Why it matters: the plan links IT projects to department priorities and the citywide strategic plan, and staff told council they expect the effort to reduce manual work, tighten security and enable data‑driven decision making.

Key details: Faizan said IT certified staff in ITIL (the Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and is conducting a maturity assessment and staffing skills inventories. The FY26 budget includes one‑time funding to buy integration tools that staff say will improve data exchange. The city published AI and data governance guidelines last week; Faizan said IT will work with departmental data stewards on data classification, dashboarding and safe use of AI tools. She also said the department will continue biannual tabletop exercises and ongoing testing of recovery processes to address disaster recovery gaps and that requests for funding of off‑site redundancy and recovery work will be made in the FY27 budget process.

Council questions centered on governance, prioritization and operational support. A councilmember asked how resource allocation is decided; Faizan replied that IT’s governance is based on ITIL and “it's through prioritization, due dates, and communication with our department staff to see what our resource capabilities are and what we could deliver in what time frames.” On cell signal problems at fire stations, Faizan said staff worked with carriers to install repeaters and to deactivate unused plans to lower telecommunications costs. In response to another question about onboarding and offboarding, she said automation opportunities are under review to speed access for new employees.

No formal council action was taken on the IT plan during the work session. Faizan said IT will continue to report metrics from its annual CIO business value survey and to align workloads to departmental needs.

Staff list: Lisa Faizan presented the plan and answered questions from the mayor and councilmembers; specific council questioners included Councilmember Hampton and the mayor.