Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Office Of Information Technology Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County IT seeks $66.65 million for FY26; OIT outlines AI guidance and 311 improvements
Summary
The Office of Information Technology presented a proposed FY26 internal service fund budget of $66,649,800, outlined an AI administrative procedure and training rollout, and discussed plans to improve 311 responsiveness and publish transparency dashboards within months.
The Office of Information Technology told the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee on April 10 that it seeks $66,649,800 in its proposed FY26 internal service fund budget and described several technology initiatives including an AI administrative procedure, enhancements to 3-1-1 and a planned transparency dashboard rollout.
Roger Benagas, the analyst who presented the OIT packet, said the FY26 proposed budget of $66,649,800 represents a 9.1% increase over FY25, driven in part by operating contract support for applications, network systems and cybersecurity. Benagas said compensation resources in the FY26 request fund 75 of 76 authorized full-time positions and one part-time position; as of March 12, 2025, OIT had filled 67 of 75 authorized full-time roles and reported eight full-time vacancies (10.7% vacancy rate).
Acting OIT Director Dwayne Prophet described steps the office has taken on artificial intelligence governance and digital services. "We have not started the AI task force. We have started the work that we were already, in process of," Prophet said, explaining that an administrative procedure (AP) governing AI use was finalized about three months earlier and that training aligned to that AP had been rolled out. Prophet said the task force itself has not been convened but a memo was circulated to select agencies to begin naming members.
Prophet and Benagas discussed 3-1-1 improvements. Prophet said the county currently uses Salesforce with a capsule overlay and that the county added SMS features to 3-1-1 roughly six weeks before the briefing. He said funding timing drives the addition of AI components to the system and that the county is planning transparency dashboards to show project pipelines and service-level performance; Prophet said he expects an internal transparency dashboard within about three months.
County Council members pressed the agency on contracting with county-based small businesses (CBSBs). Benagas and Prophet said staff-augmentation contracts use CBSBs for roughly 75% of that work; the remaining 25% of staff-augmentation vendors are required contractually to subcontract 40% of work to CBSBs. For software purchases they cited about 50% CBSB participation, noting that some enterprise and proprietary software requires larger national vendors.
Benagas also listed planned FY26 IT initiatives that include case-tracking for the administrative charging committee, enhancements to energy cap systems, and replacement work related to treasury tax and billing systems. The office reported implementing the first phase of a zero-trust cybersecurity strategy and launching a new cloud-hosted county website on Amazon Web Services to standardize agency web presence.
No formal council action was taken during the briefing.
