A Senate bill, SPB 7026, would again reorganize Florida's IT structure by creating a new centralized agency with more authority. It would create the Agency for State Systems and Enterprise Technology (ASSET) to replace the state’s current IT agency, the Florida Digital Service, by June 2026.
Subcommittee members favored the idea, with the hopes that it would increase accountability for technology work across the state government.
Rep. Mike Giallombardo, R-79, said that while he agrees with some parts of the Senate’s proposed bill, there are still some portions that can be tweaked and that “in the Senate’s proposal, it kind of makes cyber more of a consultancy arm,” and “a lot of folks might not know what that means.”
Rep. Kevin Steele, R-55, said he hopes for more centralized decision-making.
“Any organization that you go into, whether it’s a software company or health-care company, they’re going to have a CEO or a C-suite, and what that does is it centralizes and standardizes the decisions that are being made,” he said. ”It doesn’t have to be overarching across the board, but they should have a central decision-maker that helps drive the direction of what we’re going to do. From a software, AI and system admin perspective, all those components should be driven by one central hub.”
Rep. Omar Blanco, R-115, said he hopes for stronger central cyber efforts in particular.
“We’ve had agencies come up here and talk about cybersecurity and how they outsource to a CSOC [cybersecurity operations center] while we have a CSOC, which I think is also repetitive and costly. If we’ve got it, we should build it on an enterprise level so it benefits the entire state, and that begins with the tip of the spear, and that’s the state CIO,“ he said. “The Senate’s proposal is very comprehensive, so not taking anything away from them, but I do believe that the table of organization is one that would require each agency to have an IT lead, whether it be a subsetted CIO that would ultimately be responsible to the state CIO, while keeping the operation of it intact.”
Rep. Monique Miller, R-33, said the changes might raise a need to rethink purchasing as well.
“I think we have to have perfect alignment between responsibility, authority and accountability, and that does lend itself to a structure where you have somebody aligned with the top of the organization. But I also think that we have heard over and over again that with the changing pace of technology, government budgeting just simply does not keep up with it, and it makes it very difficult to be successful,“ she said. “We have to start thinking about how we purchase capabilities and not software, outcomes and not computers. We need to be able to articulate our needs in that context and then be able to manage contracts based on those evolving needs throughout the year.”
Leo Schoonover, the state’s chief technology officer, outlined a seven-step procurement life cycle consisting of planning and requirements gathering, market research, solicitation development, evaluation and negotiation, contract awards, implementation and project close-out and review.
In a nutshell, key points from Schoonover regarding executing procurements include the following:
- Budget timing significantly impacts procurement outcomes
- Agencies are not always added to early procurement conversations
- Adding flexible and adaptive procurement processes would be helpful
- Balancing centralized governance with agency autonomy is strongly recommended
As a result, Spencer recommended developing multiyear IT planning processes to help agencies better understand their needs, improving vendor evaluation techniques to reduce discrepancies and creating more robust contract oversight mechanisms to ensure business is conducted appropriately.
A full recording of Monday’s meeting can be found online.
