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ISA presents 2026 budget, new chargeback model and cybersecurity priorities
Summary
The city’s Information Services Agency (ISA) presented a $45.1 million expense budget and outlined a new chargeback model that itemizes direct application costs while moving overhead to a per‑FTE core-services bucket; ISA leaders also reviewed cyber resilience, AI training and planned infrastructure upgrades.
Director Hill, chief information officer for the Information Services Agency, presented ISA’s proposed 2026 budget and described operational priorities including a new chargeback model, cyber resilience work, an enterprise generative-AI strategy and multiple infrastructure and application projects.
ISA reported 52 full-time positions and one part-time role, with 46 positions filled and six vacancies maintained “by design” for budget flexibility; the agency supplements staff with two managed-service providers that add roughly 100 additional technical staff equivalents. Director Hill said ISA’s customer-satisfaction ratings have been in the high 90s (98% recently) and described operational metrics for incident, catalog, change-request and problem-management workflows.
On finances, ISA proposed a $45.1 million expense budget and $45.8 million revenue budget. Director Hill described the new chargeback approach: ISA will move to charging direct, itemized costs for applications and services (for example, Office 365 license costs will be charged directly to the consuming department) and consolidate prior overhead into an ISA core-services bucket that is allocated per FTE in the budget book. Hill acknowledged the model is imperfect and noted the core-services allocation will be refined in future years.
Hill emphasized cybersecurity and resilience planning. He said ISA maintains defense-in-depth controls, tabletop exercises and response plans for major incidents. The agency classifies certain services and sites as critical (for example, fire stations and other public-safety infrastructure) and maintains redundancies and incident-response procedures; Hill noted the city conducts exercises and recovery planning but that resilience work must be “evergreen.” Councilors asked whether the city has disaster recovery plans and whether analog fallbacks are in place for essential public-safety services; Hill answered that procedures exist and that ISA partners with departments to define critical services and recovery postures.
Other ISA priorities include a near-complete Windows 11 rollout, an OpenGov procurement and contract portal effort, a major GIS upgrade, Webex Calling migration and expansion of public Wi-Fi in parks (30 parks live as of the presentation). Hill said ISA has launched enterprise AI workshops and an InnovateUs partnership that provided AI and Google-certificate training for staff and the enterprise.
Councilors questioned chargeback impacts and legacy systems. Hill said the chargeback change makes application costs more transparent for departments and allows agencies to evaluate alternatives, while the ISA core-services bucket captures shared overhead. Councilors asked ISA to continue system rationalization, to pursue modernization and to work with departments to reduce redundant or legacy applications.
No committee vote was taken on ISA’s budget during the presentation; ISA staff said they will continue vendor negotiations, infrastructure planning and engagement with department partners on the new chargeback model.
