It’s been 50 days since inauguration, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has quickly indicated that the gov tech landscape is not going to be the same. From issuing
an executive order to bring forth an iterative procurement framework for technology, to laying the foundation for a new
Office of Digital Innovation, it’s clear technology is going to be central to this new administration. As with any transition, there is a lot of uncertainty about how things will ultimately roll out — and some have said this administration is slow to make appointments — but here are three things we are hearing on how California’s technology leadership could change:
- Jennifer Pahlka Could Have a More Prominent Role in the Administration
Sources tell us that
Code for America's founder and executive director,
Jennifer Pahlka, could take a more formal role in the Newsom administration — whether at the helm of the Office of Digital Innovation, in a more formal cabinet-level position, or through a deeper integration of Code for America into state technology work. Pahlka has been very public in her recommendations for the administration, penning four separate Medium.com articles with her perspectives on how the administration should approach technology and innovation.
Many elements of her recommendations have been clearly implemented to some degree by the administration including the Innovation Academy, which was included in the administration’s budget proposal to provide “continuous process improvement, human change management, executive sponsorship, and a customer-centric mindset [and] … be mandatory for state supervisors, managers, and executives with the curriculum aligned to the audience.” Pahlka also recognized this fact in a
Medium post: “In my letter, I pointed out to the incoming governor that, 'What we have too little of is service design, agility, understanding of user needs, and feedback loops that allow us to iterate to get to better outcomes.' It sounds like the Innovation Academy might aim to address these issues and we will look forward to learning more.”
The final option would be for Code for America to become an execution vehicle for the $20 million one-time Innovation Fund that was established within
the proposed budget of the Office of Digital Innovation “to assist departments with the tools and resources necessary to address prioritized needs and to demonstrate transformational customer-focused digital service delivery.” This execution capability is well within the wheelhouse of Code for America and could be a launchpad to integrate their
Delivery-Driven Government methodology into key departments within California.
- Amy Tong Will Most Likely Continue as CIO for the Foreseeable Future
Coming off of the heated 2018 election cycle, there are over 20 new governors transitioning the leadership structures of their state agencies through new appointees and organizational mandates. Even within same-party administration changes, it’s increasingly common for governors to appoint new cabinet-level leadership — and the chief information officer (CIO) position is not immune. However, in California, sources and reports indicate that Brown-appointed state CIO
Amy Tong will likely continue on in the current administration for the foreseeable future.
This week, Tong
spoke at the California CIO Academy about her technology priorities — specifically focusing on the administration’s cybersecurity, procurement, cloud adoption and digital services priorities.
- There Is Uncertainty on the Organizational Relationship Between the State CIO and the New CDO
With the eventual formalization of the Office of Digital Innovation, the state of California will join other states like
Georgia in having their version of a chief digital officer (CDO) at the helm. The CDO will be responsible for the "efficient delivery of digital services" and will have the "authority to develop and enforce requirements for departments to assess their service delivery models and underlying business processes from an end-user perspective." From a structural standpoint, it’s important to note a few things about the Office of Digital Innovation’s
currently proposed operating structure:
- The Office of Digital Innovation will operate outside of the California Department of Technology (CDT) and the existing CIO’s control, but will still reside within California’s GovOps organization.
- The Office of Digital Innovation will employ 50 people and have an initial startup budget of $36.2 million and an annual budget of $14.6 million thereafter.
- The Office of Digital Innovation will have the authority to "develop and enforce requirements" across other state departments.
The key takeaway from this is that the Office of Digital Innovation will have overlapping authority with the existing California Department of Technology, and that will need to be reconciled. In addition, there will need to be close collaboration between these two offices to establish enterprisewide standards to prevent additional complexity and confusion.
Dustin Haisler is chief innovation officer and Joseph Morris is vice president for research for eRepublic, parent company of Techwire.
