As part of Industry Insider — California’s ongoing efforts to educate readers on state agencies, their IT plans and initiatives, here’s the latest in our periodic series of interviews with departmental IT leaders.
Tony Batalla is chief information officer at the city of Oakland, a role he has had since May. He was previously director of information services at the county of Santa Cruz; and before that was chief technology officer and head of innovation and IT at the city of San Leandro from February 2014-January 2022.
“I’m really excited and privileged to be working for the city of Oakland and hopeful that over the next months and years, we can really impact some outcomes here,” he told Industry Insider — California.
Batalla has a bachelor’s of science in information systems from the University of San Francisco, and a master’s of business administration in technology leadership from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Management.
Industry Insider — California: As CIO of your organization, how do you describe your role? How have the role and responsibilities of the CIO changed in recent years?
Batalla: I think the CIO role or the head of IT role maintains its core and that’s been consistent throughout. And that core is that there’s core infrastructure, there’s core services that need to be delivered, supporting that infrastructure, supporting the staff and ensuring that they have the tools and systems they need to do their work. And that doesn’t change, that’s the same. I think where there is some evolution over the years or more recently has been moving from that core, which is more of a back-office function to helping drive some of the transformation or the strategic change, through technology. That’s kind of where the role has shifted, is to look at not just infrastructure and supporting infrastructure, but how the technology and the services themselves can transform the way that we do the work. I think obviously the examples of that are things like mobile apps and being able to receive services digitally or request services digitally, and there’s certainly an opportunity for CIOs to identify those and to drive them. I think there’s a balance between letting departments drive these projects but also having some sort of an integration into a larger portfolio. And I think that’s the balance to figure out is, the CIO of today is figuring out how much do you try to centralize some of that, and how much do you empower the organization to do on their own? That’s going to look different where you go depending on the organization, but that’s what the balance is. And, I think we would all obviously say that if you’re on one side and not doing anything, then you don’t end up with an optimal result. But if you’re on the other side and you’re doing too much and you’re trying to control everything and maybe centralize everything, then you’re not optimal either. So the right balance is somewhere in the middle.
Industry Insider — California: Does your organization have a strategic plan, and may we hyperlink to it? How big a role do you personally play in writing that strategic plan?
Batalla: We just developed an IT department strategic plan. It’s a three-year plan. It’s not published yet. It’s still something we’re working on. But the core of the plan is completed, and that plan lays out a three-year road map with something like, there’s, I think, six core goals with 90-something projects aligned to those goals. And we’re still in the process of refining that, ensuring that these projects and initiatives we’ve identified really are things that we’re going to move forward on. And then figuring out the harder piece, which is the funding elements and what can be funded and what do we think we need to fund in the future? This is the first [plan], I think, to my knowledge, that lays out all the projects, all the initiatives, and tries to align them off of some strategic goals. ... Certainly, we’re using it already in the department to drive some of our work. But I would hope that I’d be able to present it more broadly out to the organization and community in the coming months, at which point ... we could consider it in a final format that would be published. But it’s definitely something that is informing the work that we’re doing already.
Industry Insider — California: What big initiatives or projects are coming up? What sorts of developing opportunities and RFPs should we be watching for in the next six to 12 months?
Batalla: I talked earlier about the role of IT and how you have these two really big components, this core service and then this innovation — so you have your core operations, and then this more strategic and innovation element. The infrastructure is a huge part in Oakland and so there’s going to be a lot of work on shoring up infrastructure, modernizing infrastructure. I would say over the next six to 12 months, the focus is all about that core, ensuring that we’re delivering on that core mission of IT to solid, reliable, resilient infrastructure and great service around that. All the projects and initiatives are going to align to those and once we can achieve and execute on that, then we can move to some of these next more innovative goals.
Industry Insider — California: Will broadband be part of that?
Batalla: That’s interesting that you bring that up, because broadband would actually spur off. And the reason I’d say it spurs off is because, as I’m sure you know, there’s a lot of work nationally happening around broadband. There was a lot of funding and so there’s a ton of momentum around broadband that’s translated into its own channel. And so, that is something that is not in that core scope for IT but it’s absolutely something that’s moving forward at a fast pace for us. And we’re actually going to be putting out an RFI pretty soon to invite partners that could be potential future partners in our broadband plans. Oakland has done a tremendous amount of work. There was a campaign during the pandemic called Oakland Undivided. They went from, I think it was, 35 percent of low-income students having home Internet and devices to 98 percent by just incredible work. And so, we’re building on that and the next chapter in that work is to institutionalize some of that in the city. It’s through a city-led program and that would be looking at integrating city infrastructure, fiber and facilities and things like that into community broadband plans. That’s what the RFI is going to be about. That is certainly not in the core scope of IT and it’s a great example of how IT has transformed, is becoming more of a broadband leader for communities. But that’s being driven by this national work that’s happening and so we’re responding to the national- and state-level opportunities that are there and ensuring that the city of Oakland is well-positioned for those.
Industry Insider — California: In your opinion, what should local government be doing more of in technology?
Batalla: I think — again, I can only speak to my own experience and what I’m thinking about on a daily basis — but I think it’s, striking that balance, as I mentioned earlier with how technology should be managed, procured, implemented in an organization, in a local government organization. There’s a balance because on one hand, again, you have the shiny new thing that somebody saw and they want to deploy it. And that can oftentimes be great, you know? You don’t want to necessarily get in the way of that and prevent departments or people from implementing things that make their jobs better, but you do want to have some sort of underlying strategy, some cohesion to the technology portfolio. What I would say local governments [need] is identifying what that balance is and how to achieve that. And that’s really by being a really integrated partner in the organization, and you can only do that by having a really good governance within your organization. There’s great examples of that, of local governments who have really great technology governance, and I think that’s something we can all aspire to. I think in Oakland, there’s definitely partnership and it’s been wonderful to see departments already very well integrated with IT and working together in a spirit of partnership.
Industry Insider — California: How do you define “digital transformation?” How far along is your organization in that process, and how will you know when it’s finished?
Batalla: A great example of digital transformation, and I mentioned earlier about the kind of opportunities of digital, I always thought about Starbucks — if you use the Starbucks app, you order what you want from your house. You go there and you see a long line of people standing to place an order, and you bypass that and go over to the counter and pick your stuff up. It's waiting for you and you say, ‘Thank you,’ and you leave, and then you get points for that, so you get rewarded in the app. That ... totally transformed the way that I got coffee from Starbucks. Ten years ago, I would have been standing in that line. Now, I’m just walking past it, and I feel like, why isn’t everybody else doing this like this? This is the only way I would ever do this now. Trying to draw parallels from that into the work that we do is not straightforward. You’re ... very unlikely to have that easy of an experience because buying coffee is simple; using government services, it’s not simple. It’s not the same thing. And that’s OK. We shouldn’t think that it will be the same. It’s much more complicated. But I think that's kind of a gold standard for digital transformation. It’s not just applying some technology, but really changing and vastly improving the entire experience you have. To me, that’s kind of what defines what that is. And it’s not something that I think is ever really finished. There’s always some other service out there. There’s some inefficiencies in that. There’s times when you show up and your stuff's not ready and then you’re standing around waiting and now there’s a bunch of people pooled around the mobile queue. And then there’s a bunch of people in the line queuing up there, so no matter what, it’s never finished. You can always continue to improve on that and say, ‘Well, how come that happened? What was going on that day?’ I guess to sum it up for you, to look at it as, like, ‘We’re going to digitally transform the entire organization and everything is digital,’ — I just feel like that’s an unachievable, unrealistic approach. It’s more going to happen process by process, service by service, and some services will be digital and have great digital experiences, and some won’t. And that’s OK. That’s how things will evolve. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon. And that goes for both public and private sector.
Industry Insider — California: What is your estimated IT budget and how many employees do you have? What is the overall budget?
Batalla: The IT budget is $40 million, approximately. And there’s currently 89 budgeted positions. But we have, as everybody else does, vacancies, and vacancies are across sectors, across industries. We’re not fully staffed. But we’re getting there. We’ve made a lot of progress. That’s one thing in the last few months, we’ve made a lot of progress on hiring and I’m certainly happy and excited to see some of these positions get filled and get a lot of new energy. And so that’s been a very positive thing for us.
Editor’s note: In July 2021, the Oakland City Council approved a $3.8 billion 2021-2023 budget as part of the city’s two-year budget cycle.
Industry Insider — California: How do you prefer to be contacted by vendors, including via social media such as LinkedIn? How might vendors best educate themselves before meeting with you?
Batalla: I think it’s tough to stand out, like, reaching out on LinkedIn — I don’t discourage it. But it’s more of a long shot, if you will. It doesn’t, in my experience, really translate into partnerships. I think the best thing to do, really, to be substantially involved, is to sign up for RFP notifications and things like that or to just sign up with the city, I think with the city of Oakland, you can actually just register as a vendor. You don’t need to have a project necessarily. You can go to the iSupplier site online and just sign up and become a vendor. Sign up, become a vendor of the city, get all the stuff that you need and then, start getting notified when there are projects. And then when there’s a project that you know is in your wheelhouse, that’s the time to really turn on the gas and say ‘How do we get in here and get in front of the right people and demonstrate what we’re doing?’ I think the best forms of education are typically going to happen when we're looking for a solution, as opposed to a solution looking for us. When we have an issue, when we’re like, ‘We really want to implement X, Y, Z,’ that’s when ... our ears are going to be the most attuned to hear your signal, the vendor signal, through all the other noise that we hear. But I don’t discourage contact through social media and other things. It’s always good to hear about what’s going on out there. And then if there is an opportunity, being able to solicit the right responses gives us the best probability of getting a good outcome.
Industry Insider — California: In your tenure in this position, which project or achievement are you most proud of?
Batalla: I think the development of the strategic plan and the alignment of various projects. And also, some of the positions we’ve been able to fill, our chief information security officer, we’re recruiting for a new head of IT infrastructure, and lots of positions throughout the organization where people have been doing tremendous work. I’m just really proud of the team and the work we’ve done so far in establishing what our core values and our core goals are, and that was a very collaborative process with the whole department. That’s something that I think’s been a big achievement so far.
Industry Insider — California: What has surprised you most this year in government technology?
Batalla: Microsoft 365 as a suite of services. What’s been really interesting is that particularly this year, but just in general, how much value they’ve brought to the market and to IT departments and how that turnaround has happened in perception, to where you hear some departments saying now, ‘We’re just going to move to all Microsoft for our endpoint security, for our you name it.’ If you had said that was going to happen 10 years ago, I think a lot of people would’ve laughed at the idea that Microsoft would beat everybody else out. But it’s happening. I'm only speaking from the standpoint of an observer of the market. You observe what the trends are and what’s happening and you see this trend where Microsoft has strongly positioned itself as a service.
Industry Insider — California: What do you read to stay abreast of developments in the govtech/SLED sector?
Batalla: Well, of course, Industry Insider would be my top choice and Government Technology.* You’ve got some other players in that space as well, but I think Government Technology and Industry Insider do an incredible job of covering what’s happening, covering the people and the movements.
Industry Insider — California: What are your hobbies and what do you enjoy reading?
Batalla: What I’ve been reading lately is more around, I like biographies and autobiographies and just kind of learning about the lives of people. How they got to be where they are, what they did. I find those interesting and those would be my first choice.
*Government Technology magazine is a publication of e.Republic, which also produces Industry Insider — California.
Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for style and brevity.
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