Modernization Project's Timeline Put Agency Ahead of the Game

As many state agencies formulate IT modernization plans, others have embarked on large projects that are already enhancing customer service and agency efficiencies.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) has been front and center in sharing its experience, and as part of the project launched its online licensing process, cutting application-to-approval times by half. The agency licenses, regulates and provides public safety for the alcohol industry.

Unveiling the Alcohol Industry Management System, known as AIMS, in September was a milestone in the estimated overall four- to six-year project.

“For a long time, everybody had to submit, as you know, paper applications and send them in by mail or drop them off,” TABC Executive Director Thomas Graham recently told the state’s Committee on Licensing and Administrative Procedures. “Now people can file those online along with product registration. They can pay their taxes, and then they can send us fees all from their phone or computer. That's done a lot to help speed up our processes, and we're continuing to improve that system moving forward.”

AIMS allows for new license applications, renewals, application tracking, printing of forms and signs, among other functions. Alongside streamlining services, TABC implemented multiple new state laws and changes in rules and fees.

There were 78 types of licenses, but now there are 36, and 44,514 entities own one or more licenses. The agency has onboarded 71 percent of its industry users and has provided training to them, according to IT leadership.

Rheda Moseley, agency CIO since 2019, shared some of the steps and stages of developing and implementing the full modernization plan. She gave testimony during the state’s Investment in Information Technology Improvement Oversight Committee's Aug. 30 meeting.

To get a jump-start, the agency looked at requirements and business processes many months before state budget allocations were confirmed. Although Moseley said they weren’t sure TABC would be granted its Legislative Appropriations Request (LAR) for that budget cycle, the agency went through procurement and contracting processes before funding to set the stage for success.

“We found out in late May that we were being funded what we had requested in our LAR, and so then we moved forward and had everything staged for September of 2019. That allowed us to basically execute three of the four contracts by Oct. 3,” Moseley said. “Our larger one for the AIMS project was finally executed Dec. 1. That allowed us to go ahead and have many more months to work with that. We would not have been able to do so if we had been doing that procurement and contracting … after Sept. 1.”

At the outset, TABC had “18 disparate solutions at or beyond end of life.” The approach, she said, was to phase the project into two-year increments with a four-year completion goal; however, TABC will need additional funding after February.

“I'm very happy to say we are at about 65 to 70 percent complete right now,” she said. In later comments she stressed that TABC “is on target to finish it, but we will have a problem if we are not able to get the rest of the funding by that time.”

The committee she spoke to was created under House Bill 4018 during the 87th Legislature and is tasked with oversight of the Technology Improvement and Modernization Fund. It stands at $200 million, but this amount doesn’t cover all projects requesting funds.