A couple of key takeaways from the event include:
- Public-private partnerships are critical. “Our agency has had vendor relationships for a long time to support some of our big systems. We got some of the biggest systems in state government because we serve the public in many fashions, so that public-private partnership is absolutely critical, and we value it; we couldn’t get the job done without them.”
- Modernization projects are in the works. “This year, we got four large modernization projects we’re currently working on, and we’ve deployed several of them at this point after starting about a year-and-a-half ago. We’re modernizing our child welfare system, which is a really big project from an agility standpoint and speed to delivery. It’s mission-critical that the system is operational at full scale at all times. There’s really no time for any issues or any challenges, just given the nature of the business. We’re also modernizing our public assistance system that provides benefits to the citizens of Florida like food stamps, Medicaid eligibility and other programs related to that.”
Sousa further commented on the agency’s modernization of its public assistance systems, stating: “We’re actually working with our vendor partners to get that delivered in December. We’ve been working on it for a year, and we’re confident it’s going to deliver a lot of new services.”
For example, he said, from a user standpoint, the technology currently being used to support the agency’s public assistance portal is a little over a decade old. These new changes would grant citizens access to vital services more quickly and efficiently.
Also on the agency’s radar is implementing artificial intelligence to streamline operations.
“We’ve kind of put together an AI group within our shop that has been meeting with the program office to look at some of their processes and bring in automation and some of the AI capabilities that are available to the table and showing them what the art of the possible is because a lot of times they're focusing on front-line operations and are in charge of running organization,” he said.
Currently, the agency is using AI to assist with data warehousing and analytics, according to Sousa.
However, that’s not to say the agency hasn’t faced any challenges while trying to grow and modernize. One issue Sousa mentioned during the discussion was the impact of funding on agency agility.
“We try to be as agile as we can, but we’ve got limitations,” Sousa said. “Given the way the budgets work with the Legislature, you can have one year of funding, or you can have a project that has multiyear funding; although the funding is not guaranteed to come back each year, we’re always looking to be as agile, but for us, in the public sector, we definitely have constraints that we have to operate within.”
Overall, though, Sousa said, the agency has been able to move forward by following well-planned road maps for each project, making strong business cases to the state Legislature to receive funding for new projects and collaborating with different teams like the agency’s program office to execute and learn from each project.
*The Florida IT Leadership Forum is a Government Technology event. Government Technology is a sister publication of Industry Insider — Florida, and their parent company is e.Republic.
