IT Steering Committee prioritizes vendor, contract and procurement reform as top support area for ETS

Members of the IT Steering Committee used a dedicated agenda item to discuss how the committee can support ETS priorities in 2025. Committee members proposed focusing on vendor and contract management, procurement rules, and providing earlier input on ETS initiatives.

Several members said procurement statutes and administrative rules limit two‑way vendor dialogue and make negotiated outcomes harder. Amy, identified as Chief Information Officer for the Department of Education, described vendor and contract management as a departmental weakness she is working to shore up. “As I'm settling in at my role at DOE… finding that's an area of weakness that we're starting to try to shore up,” she said.

Mai, speaking from the judiciary’s experience with contracts, noted statutory and internal constraints that reduce flexibility even when enterprise contracts exist. “Even though the contract may be for the state of Hawaii, for instance, if I want to be part of the contract, I still have to procure separately as the judiciary,” Mai said, noting that statute and internal fiscal controls can limit how agencies participate in statewide contracts.

Committee members suggested practical next steps: ETS should coordinate with the State Procurement Office (SPO) to explore changes that could improve procurement outcomes; form a small subgroup or project interest group (PIG) of ITSC members to provide early-stage input on policy or large procurements; and prepare quantitative metrics so committee feedback can be more concrete.

Garrett and others volunteered to help coordinate conversations with SPO and suggested that a single ITSC member could accompany ETS leadership to initial meetings to avoid creating a public‑meeting quorum. ETS agreed to follow up on options for engagement, to check with the attorney general about Sunshine Law constraints, and to pursue initial conversations with SPO and other partners.