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Supervisors press city IT leaders over proposed DTIS reorganization; item continued for more stakeholder review
Summary
Supervisor Tom Ammiano and union speakers questioned the proposed transfer of 26 DTIS positions to client departments, raising concerns about oversight, training and bargaining-unit consultation; the committee continued the item to the call of the chair for further review.
Supervisor Tom Ammiano opened a hearing on the proposed reorganization of the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS), saying the changes raise questions about oversight, transparency and governance based on prior audits and grand-jury recommendations.
A DTIS representative described the administration's "hybrid" or shared-services model: application-support staff tied to five primary client departments would transfer to departments that operate the applications, a change intended to position staff closer to the business lines they support and to aid upcoming system replacements such as FAMIS. The representative said the transfers would not change job functions and estimated that 26 positions would move; the transition was targeted around July 1 with a roughly three-month transition window.
Union witnesses and DTIS employees objected to the timeline and said they were not consulted. "We actually found out about this transfer before they wanted us to know," Richard Eisen, president of the IT chapter of Local 21, told the committee, saying Local 21 represents more than 550 IT-classified employees and describing sharp staffing reductions at DTIS earlier in the year. Other DTIS staff said centralization provides economies of scale, cross-discipline backup and training that would be at risk under decentralization.
Supervisors questioned how oversight and governance would be preserved if staff are moved into multiple departments. DTIS officials said the change focuses on application support for a small set of departments and that governance work (including the Committee on Information Technology and the CIO role) would be retained or strengthened to review department plans and budgets.
Outcome: At Supervisor Ammiano's request the committee continued Item 5 to the call of the chair to allow the budget analyst and stakeholders (including union representatives and department managers) to meet and provide an update.
Next steps: The committee requested an updated analysis from the budget analyst and scheduled further stakeholder meetings before the item returns to committee.
