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Missouri's citizen portal moves from ARPA funding to ongoing costs; state officials say soft launch drew 250,000 accounts
Summary
Office of Administration officials told the House Budget Committee the state's digital government portal has completed a soft launch and attracted roughly 250,000 registered accounts, but warned the project requires ongoing annual payments previously covered by one-time ARPA funding and additional staffing and security resources.
Missouri has begun public use of a new statewide citizen portal that the administration says will let residents find and manage services across multiple state agencies, but budget officials told lawmakers the portal will carry recurring costs that must move from one-time ARPA funds to General Revenue.
Hannah Swan, budget director and legislative liaison for the Office of Administration, described the portal as the product of a $126 million ARPA-funded modernization project. "When we requested that funding, we did communicate that there would be some ongoing cost that would need to be picked up with general revenue ongoing," she said.
Jennifer Stilibar and other IT officials said the portal runs on a commercial platform and requires recurring subscriptions and security services. Ken Zellers, OA commissioner, and ITSD staff listed recurring line items: ServiceNow (the platform), MuleSoft integration middleware, user lifecycle management tools for onboarding and offboarding, and a suite of security and monitoring products. Officials told the committee those subscriptions, plus staffing and security, are the basis of the governor's request to cover annual costs now paid with ARPA funds.
Paula Peters, deputy CIO with the Office of Administration's IT Services Division, said the portal already supports single sign-on and search across agency services. She confirmed the platform functions users most often need are live and that the project has begun an outreach campaign: "We had a soft launch a couple of months ago... We've had about 250,000 citizens have logged on to the portal and they've actually set up an account," she said.
The portal team also asked lawmakers to approve reassigning staff who were temporarily funded by ARPA back into the agency's ongoing personnel budget. Officials said the General Assembly transferred 79 FTE to ARPA while building the portal; about 43 of those are already scheduled to move back into IT's core budget this year, with the administration requesting additional FTE and partial pay-line items to cover remaining roles and security staff.
Lawmakers sought details about the cost breakdown and asked whether the state is being tied to a single vendor. Officials said much of the portal backbone is provided as subscription services, which are updated by the vendors; the administration argued that subscription-based security and integration tooling reduces the state's exposure and helps maintain current protections.
Representative Mayhew questioned specific figures: "This is additional software above and beyond, or is this just maintenance fees of the software we bought?" Office of Administration witnesses said most of the requested E&E funds are ongoing subscriptions and maintenance for services already implemented under ARPA but not yet transitioned to recurring General Revenue.
Committee members asked for a short follow-up packet: a precise list of ongoing subscriptions, the 1-time-to-ongoing cost transition, and a timeline for the remaining FTE transfers from ARPA back to OA core budgets. Officials agreed to produce the requested documentation.
If the committee approves the requested ongoing funding, OA said the citizen portal will continue to expand agency integrations and add services, with the aim of letting residents sign in once, save preferences and locate state services through a single search.
