State IT department reports portfolio largely on budget; two projects flagged red

Justin Data, head of the project management office at the state IT department, told the Legislative Information Technology Committee the department's portfolio includes 109 baseline projects with a combined baseline of $485,680,000 and 55 active projects representing about $379,990,000 in baseline costs. "We're about $8,200,000 under cost variance, and just slightly behind schedule at 2.92% for schedule," he said.

Data walked the committee through the exception report for projects exceeding the 20% variance threshold. He said the bed-management system remains in red status while the project team waits for Trinity Health to free internal resources required to complete the last integration work. "It is a vendor-based product," Data said of the bed-management system, and he said the delay is due to health-care organizations not allocating IT staff time rather than a contract problem.

The second red-status item, Vital Records Modernization, is a custom-built replacement that Data said has required more customization, retesting and rework than planned; he said ITD and HHS (the project sponsor and funder) are working toward an initial release in January. Data reminded members that health-of-project color coding is self-reported by project teams and that red or yellow statuses signal elevated attention rather than inevitable failure.

Committee members pressed for a fuller list of funded projects that have not yet started, so future reports can track long-start and slow-start items. Data said detailed reports and links are available on ITD's public site and that staff would provide a more complete startup queue to the committee.