Recently, Nash rejoined the California Department of Child Support Services (DCSS), but this time as its CIO.
DCSS is the keystone for child support tracking and enforcement throughout the state. Its systems tie in with a multitude of other major departments, such as the California Department of Motor Vehicles, courts and the Department of Justice, to ensure that those with child support orders make good on them.Before rejoining DCSS, Nash served as the CIO for the California Civil Rights Department for five years. Before that, he held leadership positions with the California Franchise Tax Board.
One of the primary focuses for the CIO will be trying to modernize the legacy technology, including the Child Support Enforcement system, which he helped to maintain some 17 years ago while serving as an IT infrastructure operations manager. That technology, now 20 years old, leaves something to be desired in terms of modern functionality, Nash said.
“What I really am trying to focus on is ensuring that, with the limited resources we have here at DCSS, the work we’re doing moves the needle,” Nash said. “We have to make sure that the work that’s being prioritized — and we’re working very closely with our business partners on this — is making sure that the work they’re asking us to do is the work that they really need to have done.”
The stakes are high, and mistakes are not something that the department can afford to make with citizens and state agencies relying on it to function uninterrupted.
“It’s a delicate balance between modernization and keeping the lights on in a time when, again, staffing and resources are at a minimum,” he said. “We’re not getting a lot of help there. Nobody is.”
While Nash said the department is focusing on modernizing its infrastructure, it will also be taking a careful look at the organizational structure, something he refers to as “moving cheese.”
“Often, that means making some changes to how the organization is set up and designed. And that can be challenging; that can be difficult for the people that are involved in the change … people don’t like their cheese moved, right?” he said.
His approach here will be one of transparency and getting the needed buy-in from leadership and business partners.
“The organization might look a certain way. And as we look to modernize the system, or as we look to try to do more with less, we have to look at the organization itself and say, ‘How can we get more efficient as an organization?’” he said.
As far as where industry can help in these efforts, Nash said he’s less interested in fielding questions about what his department needs from a vendor, and more interested in hearing about what’s going on on the leading edge of technology.
“A lot of times, you’re not going to rely, necessarily, on bureaucracy to determine the future,” he said. “Let’s let those private partners out there who are on the cutting edge have ideas that can help partner and then drive the state towards some of these solutions.”
He pointed to the possibility of an app that could better serve citizen end users as one example of where vendors could help chart a path forward. As it stands, Nash said DCSS is in the process of developing a vendor workshop to help gather input on priority areas through requests for information (RFIs).
Nash holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and media studies from California State University, Sacramento.
