Q&A: Missouri CIO Ross Talks Opportunities

With an IT budget of about $250 million and a number of ambitious projects in the works, the state of Missouri stands to offer a great deal of opportunity to the channel. Input categorizes the state as among the most balanced in general fiscal management and a leader in the advancements of technology -- proving a catalyst in the recovery of the state and local IT market.

Missouri chief information officer Dan Ross took time out from his busy schedule to correspond with GovernmentVAR senior editor Jill Aitoro about state IT priorities.

GovernmentVAR: What IT projects wrapped up in the last year?
Ross: A significant project for the State of Missouri was IT consolidation, combining the IT staff and resources from 14 departments under the umbrella of the Office of Administration Information Technology Services Division (ITSD). Mandated by Gov. [Matt] Blunt at the beginning of his term in January 2005, this was a huge undertaking to identify the budgets and staff, create service-level agreements with the respective agencies, and move both the human resources and financial reporting responsibilities to ITSD by June 1, 2006 -- the beginning of the FY '07 fiscal year. To date, IT consolidation has resulted in an estimated $2.7 million in hard-dollar savings and an additional $2.4 million in cost avoidance due to the reduction of duplication and waste.

GovernmentVAR: What IT projects have kicked off? What are the goals for these, and what made them top-line priorities?
Ross: Goals for all projects undertaken by ITSD are to provide improved technology services and solutions for the State of Missouri departments and agencies so they can effectively service their customers. Of course, what creates top-line priorities are where we can identify projects that result in cost savings and improved productivity.

IT consolidation allowed us to form a team of technical staff to plan and migrate all the state agency e-mail to an active directory system. By using our own existing IT staff across multiple agencies, it has provided us the opportunity to avoid approximately $1 million to date for additional software licenses and technical assistance.

Another key project was to address a Web content filtering solution to be used across state government. A multi-agency team researched and recommended a statewide contract for Web content filtering for the next three years with funding provided by a one-time grant. The resulting contract provides a substantial reduction in the cost per employee and increases the number of state employees who can now benefit from 8,050 to 40,000. With savings in just the first year of approximately $123,000, this initiative should also result in increased available bandwidth and a cost avoidance in the need to purchase additional network services.

In June, Missouri issued a request for proposal (RFP) for a managed converged voice, video and data network for state government. Optionally, offerers can also bid to provide disaster recovery and data storage via this RFP. Bid evaluations are ongoing with an award estimated in the December to March 2007 time frame.

NEXT: Solutions gaining momentum in state government.

GovernmentVAR: What specific solutions are gaining the most momentum in state government and why?
Ross: A major initiative in its beginning stage is the issue of electronic medical records and the ability to share those records with entities such as hospitals, clinics, government-provided services, HMOs and claim providers. Gov. Blunt formed the Healthcare IT Task Force to take an initial look at the current status of health-care information technology, the various issues to be addressed as Missouri moves forward, how we can leverage our state's investment in telemedicine, and best practices and policies utilized by others.

Missouri is continuing to work toward offering more services online. A major initiative currently under way is in the area of business start-ups that would provide a single source of information for the entrepreneur. It becomes increasingly important to offer online services wherever appropriate to improve our ability to provide services to our constituents while leveraging opportunities for cost savings and productivity improvements.

Radio interoperability between public-safety entities at state, county and local levels has historically been a challenge. Solving this challenge is a key initiative for the state in an effort to improve our public-safety capabilities and our response to both natural and man-made disasters.

GovernmentVAR: What have been the biggest challenges faced for you and your team in the past year?
Ross: IT consolidation has been a huge challenge to identify and organize, and an untried change in state government. Missouri is one of the first states to actually consolidate both the IT staff and budgets across the majority of departments into one organization. Besides the complexity of identifying budgets and staff to be transferred, the human aspect of it enters the picture as well. People are often fearful or resistant to change, and many meetings were held and information updates made available to staff to help alleviate their fears. We celebrated the event with an ITSD kick-off of 900 staff from around the state in one auditorium. Reorganization of the management structure and disciplines, such as networking, desktop support, etc., to further leverage our resources is now a priority.

GovernmentVAR: Our audience is solution providers, systems integrators, consultants and resellers who provide IT products and services. What role do they play in your initiatives, and how could they improve how they work with your office?
Ross: Our [private-sector partners] play an important role in providing the products and solutions to assist us in our mission. A key recommendation to [contractors] is to be aware of the state's IT strategic plan, architecture and business issues prior to making the sales call. Much of this information is readily available on the ITSD and agency Web sites. A [contractor] who can demonstrate an understanding of our IT needs and direction gains credibility.

Be sure to read more about state IT initiatives later this month on GovernmentVAR.com.