OITS asks committee for Unisys transition funds, emphasizes statewide cybersecurity work

The Committee on General Government Budget heard from James Fisher of the Kansas Legislative Research Department and Jeff Maxson, chief information technology officer at the Office of Information Technology Services (OITS), who outlined OITS’s on‑ and off‑budget requests and recent cybersecurity initiatives.

Fisher told the committee OITS serves roughly 95 state agencies and about 19,000 Microsoft 365 users and described the agency’s on‑budget expenditures (statewide infrastructure and cybersecurity projects funded by the State General Fund and federal grants) and off‑budget revenues (agency payments for services). He said the FY2026 on‑budget approvals reflect two appropriations and that the budget incorporates federal support for state and local cybersecurity grant programs authorized under the Infrastructure and Jobs Act.

Maxson described OITS’s shift to consumption models and shared the agency’s recent accomplishments, including a statewide cyber exercise and the establishment of 24/7 security operations centers. “We have set up an operation center that is watching the network 24/7,” Maxson said, noting the state has staffed continuous monitoring and deployed centralized endpoint detection. He also described a managed data‑center contract with Unisys and said the change to a new data‑center contract led to a one‑time gap between estimated and actual costs.

Fisher and Maxson told the committee OITS is seeking an $8,000,000 SGF enhancement for one‑time contract transition costs tied to the new Unisys data‑center and a $250,000 SGF enhancement to hire three FTEs to support non‑cabinet agencies that lack internal IT staff. Off‑budget requests include increased rates for data‑center as‑a‑service, a stated per‑gigabyte storage rate in the materials, operational costs for an enterprise licensure platform being onboarded by fee boards and commissions, and additional Microsoft Azure and licensing costs.

Lawmakers pressed OITS on two themes: where cloud workloads are hosted and how the agency measures return on investment. Representative Riley asked whether cloud services are third‑party and expressed concern about offshoring; Maxson replied the state’s dedicated data‑center environment is housed in Kansas and said OITS is specifically focused on avoiding offshoring of resources. On ROI, Maxson said a Gartner‑led IT integration plan (prepared under legislative direction) found the state has not previously tracked IT spending consistently across agencies and that better coding and consolidated purchasing would allow OITS to quantify savings. He offered a concrete example: enterprise purchase of an endpoint detection product yielded an estimated $1,000,000 in annual savings versus agencies buying separately.

No formal committee votes were recorded during the session. The chair told members to expect another committee meeting the following morning when recommendations would be considered.