CIO Jonathan Behnke, CISO Brendan Daly and Assistant Deputy Director Serena Blanks shared their IT plans and priorities during a briefing with industry members at the San Diego Digital Government Summit* Wednesday afternoon.
Here are the broad strokes of that conversation:
- The city just passed its $6.4 billion budget package Tuesday evening, which outlines more than $132 million for the Department of Information Technology.
- The department oversees a large technology portfolio that includes 15,145 devices, 721 applications and 1,231 servers, and serves 14,237 internal users.
Artificial Intelligence:
- The city has been aggressive in its push to govern and implement AI where it makes sense. Since 2023, the city has been developing policies and exploring use cases that deliver measurable results across the city’s workforce. Some areas of focus are public records, procurement, finance, call centers, etc. To date, AI implementations have saved about 47,000 hours of employee time, equating to about $3.8 million in value.
- Behnke underscored the value of San Diego’s involvement in the GovAI Coalition and urged vendors to look into the myriad resources available there. The coalition began in San Jose in 2023 and has since grown to include member governments across the U.S., Canada and Europe. Companies that complete what Behnke called a “nutritional facts” sheet for their AI systems will have an advantage in future engagements with member governments. It’s worth noting that the coalition’s committee hosts vendor office hours; those meetings can be found here.
Cybersecurity:
- In addition to staying ahead of current cybersecurity threats, Daly noted that the department recently completed a post-quantum cryptography preparedness project focused on creating an inventory of critical applications, or cryptographic bill of materials (CBOM). The project helps identify threat points and puts the city ahead of many other jurisdictions and federal agencies.
Upcoming Opportunities:
- An RFP for a system integrator for the city’s ERP modernization project and an RFP for the project management office are forthcoming in the next fiscal year.
- The city’s current voice services contract will be reaching the end of its term in July. Behnke said a new RFP will be in the works to find a new provider in the near future.
- Records digitization is another potential opportunity. Behnke said several departments have expressed interest in digitizing paper records and may be developing RFPs in the upcoming fiscal year.
- More broadly, the city is constantly working to modernize legacy technology as needed.
*The San Diego Digital Government Summit is hosted by Government Technology, a sister publication of Industry Insider — California. Both are part of e.Republic.
