Committee reviews Secretary of State budget, hears requests for IT, poll-pad replacements and HAVA authority

The Education and Environment Appropriations Division on Tuesday reviewed House Bill 1002, the Secretary of State's budget, hearing agency staff summarize staffing changes, routine IT cost increases and several one-time technology asks.

Sandy McMurdie, deputy secretary of state, told the committee the agency seeks to remove two vacant full-time equivalent positions that were included in the prior administration's budget because the office repurposed staff and found efficiencies. "We don't feel those 2 FTEs are needed by the agency to do the work that we really need to do," McMurdie said.

The hearing focused on several lines of the budget that reflect rising technology and hosting costs. McMurdie said an IT rate increase request of about $1,300,000 is a consolidated set of increases for server and telecom hosting, vendor hosting for the agency's election management and campaign-finance systems, licensing and other maintenance.

McMurdie gave a detailed breakout: roughly $170,000 for server and telecom increases; about $650,000 described as the multi-year hosting fee for the agency's OneStop election management and campaign finance systems; roughly $300,000 for upgrades and licensing; $110,000 for maintenance of the central indexing (UCC) system; and about $80,000 for network services and related fees. "It's increases across all of those sectors," she said.

Committee members asked whether the increases were one-time or recurring. McMurdie said most are recurring incremental increases tied to…