Tennessee Finance Department seeks recurring funds for technology, continues VCIF growth request

The Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration told the Finance, Ways and Means Committee Monday that its 2026 budget request emphasizes technology modernization and continued support for law-enforcement grant programs while identifying $4.8 million in reductions.

"Most but not all of our requests that you'll see in front of you reflect the increasing importance of technology to the efficient delivery of government services," Commissioner Jim Bryson told the committee as he opened the department's presentation. Bryson identified cloud migration, expanded artificial-intelligence tools and an enterprise resource planning replacement among the top priorities.

The department said the agency's package includes cost increases totaling "almost $81,000,000," of which roughly $31.5 million is from state appropriations and about $30,000,000 of that is nonrecurring. The presentation highlighted several specific requests:

- A $5,000,000 request for ADA compliance remediation tied to newly updated federal accessibility requirements for customer-facing websites, mobile apps and forms.

- Investments to continue migration from on-premises data centers to cloud storage and a proposed $40,000,000 estimate tied largely…