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Executive nominee Karen Randolph outlines TEBS priorities if confirmed
Summary
Karen Randolph, introduced as the county executive’s nominee for deputy director of Technology and Enterprise Business Solutions, described her budget-focused approach to modernizing county IT, including identifying savings, pursuing enterprise purchases, succession planning, cloud-cost controls and strengthening cybersecurity.
Karen Randolph, the county executive’s nominee for deputy director of the Department of Technology and Enterprise Business Solutions (TEBS), told the Montgomery County Council on Feb. 25 that she would begin by scrutinizing TEBS’ budget to identify savings and redirect funds toward high-priority technology investments.
Randolph, who described her background in federal and local government budget and operations, said one of her first tasks if confirmed would be to “understand the budget, redirect savings” and ensure the county had “gone through every line item before coming before you saying that we need some additional funding for certain technologies.” She cited previous roles as a budget officer and chief administrative officer and said those experiences informed her focus on procurement discipline, enterprise solutions and project-management rigor.
Director Roper, who introduced Randolph and vouched for her experience working together in Raleigh, said Randolph’s financial and operational skills would help the county “make certain that the investments that we bring to you as council people have been well vetted.”
Randolph told the council she favors enterprise purchasing strategies to increase purchasing power and reduce duplicated systems across departments. She emphasized succession planning to address an aging technology workforce and described a plan to pair business-financial staff with technical engineers to forecast cloud consumption and long-term costs.
On cybersecurity, Randolph said she increased state-level cybersecurity budgets in a prior role ‘‘by about $1.5 to $2,000,000’’ and added staff, and she told the council she would work with TEBS staff to assess current needs and identify funding required to protect county systems.
Council President Kate Stewart thanked Randolph for her testimony and said the council would ask follow-up questions in committee. Randolph noted Feb. 25 was her birthday and thanked the council for allowing her to appear on that day.
The council did not take a confirmation vote during the morning session; Randolph’s nomination will proceed through the council’s normal committee and confirmation process.
