Vermont digital services outlines plan to centralize core IT, questions web-portal self-funding and data-sales visibility

Denise Scribe, secretary for Agency Digital Services and chief information officer for the state, told the Vermont House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on April 22 that ADS is moving to a “core enterprise services” model to reduce fragmented, hard-to-predict IT spending and gain economies of scale.

Scribe said the core-services effort aims to cover help desk and desktop support, networking and security, enterprise architecture and project management — functions she described as “non negotiables” that should operate as a single platform rather than being repeatedly purchased on a per-agency basis.

"When I look at 8% of the overall IT spend is what we would consider predictable," Scribe said. "That means 92% of that money is going to continue driving that friction and frustration of the unknown." She told the committee ADS has been auditing chargeback and timesheet billing practices and wants to reduce duplicate payments and unexpected growth in SLA and bespoke charges.

Why it matters: Committee members are considering statutory and budget changes to how Vermont funds technology. ADS officials said current recovery models and a longstanding statute that makes the state web portal “self funded” are creating operational friction and limit options for hosting, accessibility work and cross-agency integration.

Josiah Ray, the state's chief data and AI officer, described the statutory web-portal structure as out of…