Fresno County Nears Completion of Realignment, Separating IT from General Services

Fresno County has nearly completed a reorganization that county officials hope will make its IT function more focused and streamlined.

Ed Hill, the county’s chief operating officer, said the Internal Services Department is being split into its two component parts — IT and general services. The Board of Supervisors heard the second reading of the reorg ordinance on Jan. 28, and it is expected to go into effect within 30 days.

“We have had a combination of general services and IT that occurred long before I arrived,” Hill said. “The two functions don’t really align well, and when the last director left, it created a void. Recruiting for someone with experience in janitorial service, construction, purchasing and IT is extremely difficult, and we were not able to identify any other county that used a similar model.”

Robert Bash, who had served as director of Internal Services and chief information officer for more than 10 years, abruptly resigned on May 1, two weeks before a county grand jury report criticized the county’s handling of its real estate holdings. Bash told the online news publication GV Wire that the report had nothing to do with his resignation and that he was looking at several possibilities. His LinkedIn profile indicates he has taken a seasonal post as manager of Sacramento-based Informatix Inc.’s child support systems.

Hill said the county will begin interviewing candidates for the new IT director position in the next couple of weeks and hopes to have the position filled by mid-March, adding that the split will allow for hiring a true IT subject matter expert.

“That leader will be able to move the county in a much better, quicker pace, keeping up with technology moving forward. That’s the piece that we’re missing — the true subject matter expert in IT in that position,” he said. “We want somebody to come in and truly evaluate [everything] and make their recommendation to the County Administrative Office as well as the board. I’m anticipating there will be some changes — I just don’t know what they are yet.”

Among the things the new director is likely to examine is the county’s current IT procurement relationship with Dell Technologies in which the county leases equipment and upgrades to newer products every four or five years.

“Does this finance model and this leasing model and this rotation model for computers work better?” Hill said. “And as our security issues are being addressed, what infrastructure do we need moving forward? Things along those lines. The county is always looking for opportunities to best use our limited financial resources while maintaining the service levels that we have to maintain.”