Both are exceptional items requests, which means these are funds requested in addition to regular funding. IT licensing at $4.3 million is another exceptional item and includes money for continued licensing of software and cloud services.
During a recent Industry Insider — Texas event, OCA Director of IT Services Casey Kennedy spoke of these systems and how technology experts can advocate for needed tech advancement.
For context, OCA provides resources to the judicial branch of Texas. This includes technical assistance, electronic filing (e-filing), case management and remote technology services to trial courts. It also includes IT solutions for appellate courts, specialty courts and judicial branch agencies, according to its Legislative Appropriations Request(LAR).
Twenty-five staffers in the IT shop serve some 1,100 users throughout Texas, who use e-filing and Zoom videoconferencing, among other cloud-based offerings. Kennedy said IT is moving largely to the cloud since 2015-2016 and continues to look for cloud-based solutions.
“Currently, I would say we’re about 80 to 90 percent in the cloud; we’ve got a couple of legacy things that are in-house that we’re looking to push out. But ... we’re moving towards that model.”
For him, the aspect of having vendor experts focused on their own products is priceless, especially given rapid changes in technology, cybersecurity concerns and the shortage of IT talent in the public-sector workforce. If the cloud provider handles installation, management and maintenance, the OCA staff can focus on its court customers — ranging from clerks to lawyers to judges still responding to some backlog from the coronavirus response.
“Our overall strategic vision right now is to complete our movement to the cloud and have no new in-house development,” Kennedy said. “We’ve been pushing the model of ... turnkey operations to where instead of me hiring a gaggle of programmers to come in to program something, I would much rather do an RFP on a turnkey solution … and let you guys deal with the staffing and putting the pieces together.”
He hopes to issue a request for proposals (RFP) this summer for a system of reporting case-level data, as current data reporting is general and not granular. The data would be transmitted from local systems to a “massive state data warehouse.”
Aspects of the data management include:
- Data must be kept in the judicial system.
- Data classification varies.
- Privacy and control are of utmost importance.
Upcoming priorities listed in the agency LAR are a statistics system that would take about three to five years to get off the ground and a case management system with a 2025 start date if funding is granted.
Money is key, but education is needed. Kennedy said lobbyists and tech advocates can educate the Legislature on the way software as a service (SaaS) is funded and how the various processes work. The judicial system is a slow adopter due to privacy and security concerns, and technology moves take time.
In turn, the Legislature holds the purse strings, which impacts adoption and implementation. Cost estimates with ongoing costs can be misunderstood outside of tech circles and may get resistance.
“Those things are very difficult for us as IT leaders to sell the Legislature because they’re used to the old days where I say … I’m going to buy the system, it's going to be $10 million and it's a one-time hit, and it’s done,” Kennedy said. “That does not exist anymore.
“If you [vendors] have lobbyists, use them to convey those kinds of messages ... educate [the Legislature] on the fact that the world is moving to software as a service, network as a service, infrastructure as a service. I mean, we're now running our websites on platform as a service … This is where we’re going, and we need to get away from the notion that it’s a one-time ‘here’s the money and I’m done paying.’ Those days are long, long gone.”
Want to do business with OCA? A few tips:
- Comply with the RFP process.
- Be TX-RAMP certified through the Department of Information Resources (DIR).
- Be familiar with legislative appropriations for the agency and understand what those numbers mean.
- Be responsive, supportive and willing to help solve problems from the outset.
- OCA uses the Texas SmartBuy website to post opportunities, using agency number 212.
