Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Department of State asks for funding to modernize Sunbiz and voter registration systems
Loading...
Summary
The Department of State told a House subcommittee that Sunbiz — the state's 34-year-old business registry — needs modernization and password protections, and requested funding to continue procurement work on Sunbiz and to modernize the statewide voter registration system.
The Florida Department of State requested funding on Tuesday to modernize two legacy systems used by residents and businesses across the state: Sunbiz, the Division of Corporations' business registry, and the statewide voter registration system.
Secretary of State Cord Byrd told the House Information Technology Budget and Policy Subcommittee that Sunbiz was established in 1991, now supports more than 3.5 million business entities and generates more than $575 million in general revenue annually, and that its underlying database and codebase are now decades old. "Sunbiz is 34 years old... Over half a billion dollars annually to the state are reliant upon a system that is older than cell phones and the public Internet," Byrd said.
The department asked for $800,000 in recurring general revenue to implement a password-protected account capability for electronic filings and $5,000,000 in nonrecurring general revenue to resume a competitive procurement process for a modern replacement of Sunbiz. Byrd said the department already migrated the legacy system to a new virtualized environment (in cooperation with Florida Digital Service and the Northwest Regional Data Center) that runs "five times faster than the physical hardware" and reduces hardware-failure risk, but that a full modernization is still required.
Byrd described prior modernization efforts that were suspended after vendor disruptions: work funded in 2019–2020 was halted when the selected vendor was acquired and essential project personnel left, and the project was later canceled. The department noted that three independent assessments concluded the business registry application is not sustainable in its current form and recommended unification and modernization.
Acting CIO George Brown and Assistant Secretary Jennifer Kennedy answered committee questions about account protections and timelines. Brown said some specialized account types (for example, the state's notary education account) already use passwords; he said the department can provide a count of accounts now protected by passwords on request. The department said the virtualized environment now uses a supported relational database (the legacy system was reported as running on Oracle) and that any migration to SQL Server will use a current, supported version determined at conversion time.
On elections, Byrd said the statewide Florida Voter Registration System (FDRS) — created after the 2005 legislative mandate and codified at section 98.035, Florida Statutes — also needs modernization. The department received $450,000 in 2022–2023 to conduct a feasibility study that produced business, functional and technical requirements; the Division of Elections is now requesting $2,494,800 nonrecurring and $44,000 recurring to competitively procure a solution to modernize FDRS. Byrd told lawmakers a modernized voter-registration system would increase efficiency, improve data security and reduce manual processes counties must perform when legislative changes occur.
Lawmakers asked procedural and technical questions: how many Sunbiz accounts currently have passwords (department staff said they would provide a count), whether the department has a timeline and project metrics (the department offered to share its project schedule and metrics with the committee), and how records related to voter re-enfranchisement (for former felons) could be integrated. Byrd said information used to determine voting eligibility for returning citizens typically resides with the clerks of court and Department of Corrections and would require coordination across those offices.
The department characterized its requests as modest relative to Sunbiz revenue: Byrd said the $5,000,000 nonrecurring request is roughly equivalent to "one week's revenue" collected by Sunbiz. Committee members asked for the feasibility study, procurement timeline, and account-protection counts; Secretary Byrd and staff said they would provide that information to the subcommittee.
The Department of State presentations closed the hearing; the committee thanked presenters and requested follow-up materials before taking further action on new appropriations.
