Subcommittee reviews $2.6M Tyler Technologies contract to build citizen mobile app

The Arkansas Legislative Review Subcommittee took up a supplemental agenda item and reviewed a $2,600,000 contract with Tyler Technologies to develop a mobile application that will allow citizens to access state services through a single interface. Katie Walden of the Bureau of Legislative Research told members the contract was procured through an RFP and will be used initially by the Department of Finance and Administration for vehicle services and licensing, with potential expansion across state agencies.

Jim Hudson, secretary of the Department of Finance and Administration, described the app as a single sign-on portal that will pull existing, already-developed systems into one place so citizens do not have to visit multiple websites. "We're looking at having one app that consolidates all those services," Hudson said, and told the committee the project is targeting completion this calendar year, with an October target.

Senator Bryant and other members asked whether the underlying systems and procurement decisions were complete. Hudson said the services are already present in existing state systems and this contract is for app development and integration rather than recreating the back-end systems. The committee approved a motion to take up and review the supplemental agenda item before moving on.

The committee did not vote on contract award language in this meeting; staff presented the contract for the committee’s review and placed it on the agenda following DFA notification that the contract exceeded the standard review threshold.

Next steps: the subcommittee reviewed the supplemental contract and recorded no further action at this meeting; DFA staff indicated the project will continue through procurement and implementation stages and provided an estimated completion timeframe.