Gov. Jerry Brown announced Friday he has signed legislation directing the California Department of Water Resources and partnering state agencies to create a statewide water data platform. AB 1755 stipulates that the application should be publicly accessible and open source tools could avoid the need to build an "expensive" new centralized database.
A new state audit of management and contracting policies at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has revealed it likely won't achieve full compliance with the state's cybersecurity standards until the end of 2019.
The second-annual Civic and Gov Tech Showcase was a forum for 20 emerging companies, government programs and nonprofit endeavors, a networking event bringing together government workers and private-sector experts, and a rallying cry for Sacramento as a viable alternative to the Silicon Valley.
As a result, the state's private cloud, vendor-hosted solutions and other IT service offerings are now available to thousands of potential new customers across California in education, K-12, colleges and universities, and libraries.
The platform, called URSUS, will help generate the first comprehensive statewide data set of police use-of-force incidents in the nation, according to CalDOJ and the platform’s developer, technology nonprofit Bayes Impact. URSUS implements the requirements of Assembly Bill 71, legislation enacted in 2015 mandating California’s 800 police departments and other law enforcement entities to collect and report police 'use of force' data.
Orange County, Calif., reported on its ongoing portfolio of information technology projects and fiscal year 2015-16 accomplishments in a quarterly summary submitted to the county board this month. As of summer 2016, Orange County said it's managing at least 18 IT projects with a budget totaling $40 million (see slide below).
Zac Townsend is settling in to his role as the state of California's first-ever chief data officer since being appointed to the new position in late June. For the past two-plus months, he has gone on a listening tour to get acquainted with the state government. He shared his impressions about the role vendors could play as he and California state government continue to work on data-focused projects moving forward.
The newly convened council will form work groups to issue recommendations for how California could revamp its IT procurement strategy and streamline the state's complicated array of contract vehicles. Chris Cruz, chief deputy director of operations at the Department of Technology, says the input will be part of a new strategy, or "road map," for procurement and contracting.
Scott Gregory's new role is now permanent and official: He has been appointed deputy director of the Office of Digital Innovation at the California Department of Technology, the governor's office announced on Friday. Gregory has served as the state geographic information officer since 2011.
Under AB 2828, California government agencies, businesses and individuals must now give notice to affected consumers and constituents about incidents when encrypted personal information has been compromised. Previously, the reporting rules only applied when unencrypted personal information was breached.
A motion scheduled to be presented by Mark Ridley-Thomas during a supervisors meeting Tuesday says several BI platforms are now on the market that could be useful, a decade after the Board of Supervisors approved its then-CIO's recommendation to adopt Cognos as the county’s standard for business intelligence and ad-hoc reporting software.
In June, the City Council approved a partnership with Irvine, Calif.-based company "5 Bars," which will develop a wireless master plan for Sacramento, “proactively market" city-owned assets and negotiate agreements with service providers on behalf of the city, according to the agreement. A cooperative purchasing network is interested in offering the agreement to other public entities.
The Fraud Data Analytics Software (FDAS) project has moved through the first stage of the Department of Technology's project approval process, and market research for the solution is being done
Catherine Kendall worked for KAI Partners, where as part of her duties she provided the Department of Conservation with project management services for implementation of a well management and data reporting system for the department's Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR).
In a conversation with reporters this week, state CIO and Department of Technology Director Amy Tong said finding a state CISO for California is not an easy task and that the Governor's Office has been actively engaged in the recruitment.
A cross-section of vendors that do business with the state of California met for the first time on a newly formed advisory council that will weigh in on IT procurement, the state’s services portfolio, emerging initiatives, as well as other hot topics.
During a recent debrief, state officials shared insight about what vendors did well and could improve on when they submitted working software as part of a process to qualify for California's first "pool" of agile developers.
Late last month the Secretary of State's Office awarded a $542,000 contract to Technology Management Solutions Inc. to do business analysis for the $53.5 million Business Connect project, which will put Statement of Interest business filings online and move the Secretary of State’s Office to a paperless records environment, enabling the organization to turn around business filings in a matter of days instead of weeks.
California Child Welfare Digital Services has selected New York City-based Case Commons Inc. through a competitive procurement to develop open source software that will replace "intake" functionality in the state's legacy child welfare system.
Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal) CIO Subbarao Mupparaju and members of his executive team outlined upcoming initiatives planned for the project in a recent presentation during the Techwire Industry Briefing in Sacramento.
Paper-based crime reports would be converted to digital data sets presented on the California Department of Justice's transparency website, under legislation passed this week.
The Board of Equalization voted Tuesday to approve an $85.1 million contract with Fast Enterprises as primary vendor of the Centralized Revenue Opportunity System (CROS). BOE Executive Director David Gau (photo) called the contract award an "important step forward for taxpayers and our staff."
The Centralized Revenue Opportunity System (CROS) will replace the Board of Equalization’s patchwork of legacy systems built in the 1990s to collect and monitor sales-and-use taxes, property taxes, special taxes and other revenue streams.
The California Department of Technology on Monday issued a policy letter announcing that the state's management manuals have been updated to include the fourth and final stage of a new approval process for IT projects.
As the Franchise Tax Board gathered last week to celebrate the completion of its five-year-long Enterprise Data to Revenue (EDR) project, work had already started on a sequel.
The Legislature has passed a bill directing the California Department of Water Resources and other state agencies to create a statewide water data platform. If signed by the governor, AB 1755 would task DWR with publishing the request for proposals needed for system development by 2018.
Could FI$Cal someday become the state government's largest provider of Software as a Service? Those leading the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal) have talked about that possibility as the $910 million project modernizing California's budgeting and accounting systems continues to mature and evolve.
Under legislation sent to the governor this week, California would have four more years to award as much as $25 million in grants and financing for broadband infrastructure and adoption projects in multifamily apartments and other unserved publicly supported housing developments.
