Committee advances bill to centralize state IT under Office of State Technology

Representative Scott Richardson of House District 13 presented House Bill 15 57 in concept to the House Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology, and the committee voted to pass the bill. The measure would expand the current Division of Information Systems’ role (to be the Office of State Technology, or OST) to provide statewide governance, project oversight and procurement standards for information systems and related purchases.

The bill, Richardson said, is intended to create “a centralized point of project management” to curb scope creep on IT projects, ensure projects meet statewide priorities and keep spending aligned with those priorities. Richardson told the committee the proposal would help “make sure that we do have oftentimes are actually regularly, we see, expansion of of IS projects” and that a central office could enforce clearer scopes and budgets so projects stay “on task and on budget.”

Jay Harden, director of the Division of Information Systems (DIS), told the committee the Arkansas Forward (McKinsey) study found 118 ongoing IT projects in the state and that only about 18 of those had significant impact on the state’s strategic direction. Harden said the bill would formalize governance so the state can prioritize projects “based off of risk and the impact to the citizens.” He added that the central office would help standardize purchases so agencies are not buying disparate hardware without consistent cybersecurity standards.

Gary Vance, the state chief information security officer, said consolidation can improve both efficiency and security. He described cases where agency-level purchases “adversely affect[] an agency's ability and my ability out of the cyber office to detect and respond to certain threats,” saying centralized oversight could prevent installations that trigger false or real security incidents.

Committee members asked about procurement thresholds in the draft bill. A committee member asked why the bill uses a $5,000 threshold and a $20,000 upper bound for certain streamlined purchases. Richardson and DIS staff said the thresholds are intended to prevent departments from independently buying servers and other larger infrastructure items in the $5,000–$25,000 range while still allowing preapproved, commonly purchased items (for example, laptops and monitors) to be bought quickly from an approved list.

Harden and other DIS staff said centralizing licensing records and enterprise agreements would also allow the state to identify unused licenses and consolidate contracts. Harden cited an example in which bringing the Department of Education under an enterprise VMware agreement saved about $50,000. He also told the committee that a broader assessment is on DIS’s “hundred day plan,” and cited a projected $374,000,000 savings estimate tied to centralization that appears in the Arkansas Forward findings; Richardson characterized that as a projection and not a guaranteed amount.

No members of the public signed up to speak for or against the bill. Representative Richardson closed by urging committee support, and the committee chair called a voice vote. The committee recorded the bill as passed in committee and adjourned.