The Department of Administration (DofA) told the SABA Committee on Friday that it has spent the last several years consolidating back‑office functions, modernizing procurement and public‑records handling, and implementing broadband grant programs funded by federal ARPA and state sources.

"Everything we do is internal to government," the presenter said in opening remarks. The department described efforts to right‑size office space under a program it calls ROSE (remote office and workspace study), to move some public services into bank‑style customer sites, and to reduce leased property costs by consolidating agency footprints.

Why it matters: The department said its efforts aim to reduce deferred maintenance, improve customer service, save lease costs and modernize how the state stores and shares data. Some changes require legislative changes or budget requests, staff said.

Key points presented
- Remote work and real‑estate consolidation: Department officials said the ROSE initiative uses job‑function analysis to decide who should telework and who needs an on‑site office. The department said consolidation and vacancy management have already reduced lease costs by about $480,000 annually and are intended to address $65% of deferred maintenance needs on the capitol complex.
- Broadband and grants: The department said it administers Connect Montana grants and ARPA funds for broadband, including a roughly $310 million ARPA allocation. It said the program's grants are competitive; applications were received in the fall and the agency is reviewing them pending any federal rule changes.
- Procurement modernization: The department said it has centralized contracting, expanded training and certification for agency contracting officers, consolidated duplicate agency contracts, and used cooperative purchasing agreements to reduce costs (it cited a $1 million saving from consolidating a LinkedIn Learning contract).
- Public records: The department described a centralized public‑records portal created after 2021 to reduce back‑and‑forth across agencies. Citing Senate Bill 232 (2023), the presenter said the office now has an average response time of 12 days and asked senators to consider additional funding in House Bill 100 to continue modernization and automation of requests.
- Chief Data Office and IT: The department said its Chief Data Office (CDO) helps agencies identify datasets and build dashboards; it said HHS child‑safety staff saved about one hour per day after digitizing records and workflows.
- Human resources and pay: The department previewed House Bill 13, which the agency described as the pay plan. The agency said the proposed pay change is "$1 an hour or 2.5% whichever is greater" for staff and outlined related per‑diem and health‑plan adjustments (it said the state health plan covers about 28,000 lives and that recent procurement changes have saved approximately $28 million over three years).

Committee follow‑up and schedule
- Senators asked for materials and for a version of the org chart that includes names; staff said they would provide those documents and headshots on request. Members asked technical questions about public‑records counts and the extent to which the department handles requests across cabinet agencies; the presenter said the central portal manages requests for cabinet agencies while respecting constitutional officers' autonomy.
- The department listed several bills it expects to bring this session (for example, House Bill 13, House Bill 100, House Bill 63, Senate Bill 29 and others) and identified priorities: reauthorizing bond validation (house bill 63) and continuing public‑records modernization (house bill 100) among them.

Ending: The committee accepted the briefing and scheduled additional agency presentations for the next week; no formal committee action was taken on the Department of Administration's requests during the session.

Quotes in this summary come from the SABA Committee transcript and are attributed to Department of Administration presenters and committee members.