I am not talking about adding more dead weight to government, what I am talking about is taking the best and brightest IT managers and technicians and keeping them and cutting those who don't make the grade, and the easiest way to do that in state government is form a new agency. Taking the IT budgets from all the departments and centralizing their funds, both hardware/software and personnel, would be a part of that. You could then hire as needed to fill the now vacant positions. The only 'up-front' money needed would be that for the director of the new agency. It would be his job to take a month or so, evaluate, talk to managers and techs, find out what works and what doesn't, and after gathering this information, come up with a plan and be free to run with it. Once the ground work is planned then it's just a matter of technically imposing it. So I guess I don't see where that would cost anyone anything. The overhead monies would be all in hardware or software depending on decisions made, except for the agency manager. One of the thing you talked about was Gore being a 'Tsar' (and here I thought he was the anti-christ) at cutting spending and starting with the DOD. All I know is being in the Army at the time, we got tons of new computers, and software and I'm sure it wasn't free. Maybe that was the up-front monies you were talking about. T The bottom line is that the common goal is to better the system and make things easier and hopefully cheaper in the long run. Just because the Feds did things a certain way doesn't mean that it would work for the state, or even that it's the best way for the state. Hell, no one person here is right about everything, but that's what a forum is for right? Discussing issues and getting ideas that are new? In any case I appreciate a chance to be heard and get feedback, and please remember these are only my opninions. Dion Baird -----Original Message----- From: c.radley@private [mailto:c.radley@private] Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 1:35 PM To: crime@private Subject: Re: CRIME Computers vulnerable at Oregon department A new agency is not necessary, nor is it necessary to have centralized IT. Nor is it even necessary to have a single person in a permanent position to enforce standardization. Each of those things may or may not help. But the Federal Govt achieved something similar without doing any of those things. Oregon can learn a lesson from the Federal Govt. (Disclaimer - please do not make inferences about my personal political affiliations from this post - I am attempting to be objective.) The Clinton/Gore administration was elected in large part on the platform of reducing government waste. Gore became a "Tsar" in this respect. Even more than the State of Oregon, the Federal Governemnt is a huge sprawling beurocracy comprising hundreds of agencies, each with different technologies, different practices and standards. Gore set about to slay the biggest dragon first - the Department of Defense, making a prominent example for the rest of the federal administration. He succeeded. In the early-1990's Gore met with the Secretary of Defense (proabably several times). The result was that the Sec agreed to a complete purge of DOD, getting rid of ALL the MIL-STD's, and replacing them with cheaper commercial equivalents. This of course was immensely unpopular in the various armed services, and different procurement offices. But Gore and the Sec stuck to their guns and forced it through. Exceptions were (and are) granted in cases where no equivalent commercial standard exists. In many cases DOD actually went to the private sector (mostly ANSI and ISO) and worked with them to convert the government military standard to a commercial equivalent which could be used by industry as a whole, and be administered via ANSI (a not for profit) instead of via the DOD. There is little doubt that this is saving a ton of money in the long term, although it required quite a bit of up front investment and banging folks heads together in the short term. The cultural sea change was painful, but actually happened remarkably quickly. In the space of about 2 years it was a done deal. Nothing was centralized, no new beurocracies were created. There was simply an agency wide dictate coming from the White House, and persistence from a "Tsar" (Gore) to make sure and follow through. Once the biggest dragon was mortally wounded, all the other agencies saw the writing on the wall and did not kick up much fuss when it came their turn to standardize. As a part of this, ISO-9000 compliance now is a requirement for the entire Federal Government. Something similar could be done in Oregon, if the top executive decides to make it happen.
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