Committee hears companion bills to move state IT planning from point-in-time reports to rolling oversight, raise 'major' project threshold

Corey Mach, chief information officer for the State of North Dakota, told the House Government and Veterans Affairs Committee that Senate Bill 2,048 would remove rigid reporting deadlines and allow the state to maintain a rolling, continuously updated information‑technology plan for agencies. “Instead of having a single plan produced every biennium, we have a rolling plan,” Mach said, adding that a dashboard now gives real‑time updates on large IT projects’ status, costs and milestones.

The bills are companions: 2,048 removes date‑specific statutory deadlines that agencies must meet for IT planning, and 2,049 would revise the definition of a “major IT project” and the executive steering‑committee (ESC) oversight model. Mach said the current statutory definition based on a $500,000 threshold captures many projects that are low‑risk or hardware installs and burdens agencies with dozens of ESCs. SB 2,049 would treat projects costing $5,000,000 or more (implementation plus one year of licensing), projects expected to take longer than a year, or projects otherwise deemed high‑risk as automatically subject to enhanced oversight. It would also allow the CIO discretion to opt projects into enhanced oversight and to select more flexible ESC membership.

Sherry Nies, chief procurement officer at the Office of Management and Budget, told the committee her office supports the bills and emphasized that statutory reporting to the legislative IT committee would remain. “If you look at page 2… they will receive a report from the Information Technology Department related to… IT projects over $5,000,000,” Nies said, noting the bills are meant to align oversight with modern software‑as‑a‑service procurement and licensing models. Committee members asked whether the changes would reduce transparency or sidestep open‑meetings rules for ESCs; both Mach and Nies said open‑meeting requirements would still apply when committees take formal actions, and that attorney general guidance would clarify when discussions constitute a public meeting.

Mach said the statutory consultation that requires agencies to consult NDIT on IT projects expected to cost more than $100,000 had been proposed for repeal in earlier drafting but that he supports keeping a communication requirement so NDIT can advise agencies early. The bills retain quarterly reporting to the legislative IT committee through the NDIT dashboard and keep oversight of projects over $100,000 in the monitoring process.

The committee asked about fiscal oversight, who pays for ESCs, and how shifting the threshold would affect the number of ESCs. Mach said the higher threshold and the time‑based criterion would reduce the current number of active ESCs (estimated 40–45) and that ESC work is billed to project budgets; his office tries to cap ESC billing to limit cost. NDIT, OMB and the attorney general’s office said they had worked together on the drafts.

The bills drew no recorded votes in this hearing. The committee closed the hearings and proceeded to other items.