ITS asks Legislature for staff and procurement overhaul, outlines five IT initiatives

Dr. Ojeran, an Information Technology Services (ITS) official, told the Appropriations Subcommittee that ITS is asking for roughly a 12% increase in salaries and FTEs, 19 new positions and a roughly 10% increase in contractual services to support five strategic initiatives: procurement modernization, artificial intelligence governance and innovation, a cloud center of excellence, expanded digital services and creation of an innovation fund.

The request is tied to what ITS presented as rapid growth in agency technology spending: "Spending on technology in government through dollars that are appropriated by the legislature is up 22 to 30% over 3 to 5 years," Ojeran said, and ITS needs additional capacity to help agencies procure and run shared technology.

Why it matters: ITS runs centralized services used across state government (the statewide network, a Tier 3 data center and enterprise cybersecurity) and positions itself as a shared-services provider. ITS argued additional staff and contractual authority are needed so it can vet procurements, support cloud migrations, manage AI adoption, and produce repeatable, shared solutions for agencies.

On procurement, ITS said it launched a Procurement Modernization Advisory Council and held its first meeting Dec. 19 with the top 30 state agencies. The council is expected to produce a two- to three-year modernization roadmap; ITS said it will complete the roadmap within six months and hold monthly meetings (fourth Thursday) with agencies to refine and implement changes. ITS staff framed procurement reform as people, process and technology work: roughly 25% of the new pins would be dedicated to procurement work, ITS told the committee.

ITS also outlined an artificial intelligence agenda after the governor issued an executive order directing state AI work. The agency said it has stood up an AI Innovation Hub in partnership with Amazon Web Services and the Mississippi Artificial Intelligence Network (a partnership described in the hearing as involving Mississippi State University and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College). ITS staff said they are developing an AI inventory and guidance for agencies; Stephanie Hedgepeth, an ITS team member, described an internal group called "AI Mississippi" that is drafting the inventory and ethical guidance and expects to administer a survey to agencies.

Cloud adoption and a cloud center of excellence are the third initiative ITS described. Ojeran told the committee ITS now has access to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Cloud and said it is working to add Google Cloud, so ITS can support multi‑cloud agency solutions. ITS described a cloud framework document and said agencies and ITS will assess cloud readiness case by case.

The fourth initiative is digital services. ITS noted the statewide portal mississippi.gov hosts about 425 services and was ranked fourth in the country in a recent ranking. ITS said it intends to expand the digital services team and double down on shared citizen-facing services.

The fifth initiative is creation of a small innovation fund. ITS proposed setting aside a modest fee assessed on certain procurement vehicles (a practice ITS said other states use) so ITS would have an on-hand fund to pilot AI, cloud and digital services projects that could then scale across agencies.

On workforce, ITS said it is working with the State Personnel Board on job reclassifications and compensation banding (the hearing referenced a multi‑year plan to move ITS positions toward zone 2 midpoints). ITS staff said about 73% of current ITS employees are below the target midpoint and that the requested progression dollars are part of a four-year plan to improve pay and retention.

ITS provided dollar-level details: ITS staff said the salary line includes roughly $3,000,000 to cover 19 new positions and progression dollars and that contractual requests total about $2,700,000. Committee members pressed for implementation timelines and cautioned about agencies seeking exemptions to perform their own procurements; ITS said the advisory council is designed to include agency leaders so changes will be collaborative.

ITS told the subcommittee it will brief the legislature and agencies quarterly on procurement modernization and that some procurement improvements will be implemented before the two‑year roadmap completes (for example, extending express procurement lists and creating new cloud procurement vehicles).

The hearing recorded no formal committee vote on the ITS budget request; ITS presented its FY2026 budget ask and drew questions from committee members.

Looking ahead: ITS said monthly council meetings will continue through June–July, and it will present the modernization roadmap to legislators and agencies when complete. ITS also said it will continue to stand up multi‑cloud access and will support agency cloud migrations through the proposed cloud center of excellence.