During the Industry Insider — Texas State of Technology forum last week, CIOs from the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), the Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV) expressed a need to modernize and shared their goals for the biennium.
TxDOT CIO Anh Selissen stressed broadband, infrastructure and architecture as key spending areas.
“Broadband is critical; the more you implement modern technologies on the road, the more critical it is to have fiber, and the more critical it is for you to have a reliable and robust network,” said Selissen. “So, we are going to be looking at re-architecting our network in multiple facets this next couple of years.”
Ricardo Blanco, CIO and deputy executive commissioner of HHSC, stressed the importance of getting his department “away from mainframe.”
“We laugh about it, but right now those suckers will run as long as you don’t pull the plug,” said Blanco. “The challenge there is a lot of that programming, you cannot find people with that skill set. So you put a piece of electrical tape by that plug-in, you’re like, ‘Please don’t touch and leave it alone.’ But you know, at some point you have to make the call and start transitioning away from that older technology.”
Blanco also pointed to the department’s applications and cybersecurity areas in need of modernization.
“Those that are familiar with the applications at HHS, some of them are very old,” he said. “This gives us an opportunity to really transition off of [mainframe].”
TxDMV CIO Wendy Barron pointed to her department’s Registration and Title System (RTS) as being in the planning stages of a modernization effort.
“The big one is ... we’re kicking off the initiating and planning phases of our RTS modernization effort,” said Barron. “So we’ve got a 30-year-old system and a lot of interconnected systems. And we are spending this biennium doing the research necessary, the planning necessary, to figure out exactly what the direction is on that, and [then] planning out the procurement so that we go back to the Legislature next session and ask for the full amount of implementation funds.”
Adam Shaivitz, media and communications officer for the TxDMV, previously shared the department’s RTS modernization goals with Government Technology*.
“The project aims to implement a modern system capable of improving customer services and providing robust data management and security features in a platform that is cost-efficient to maintain and expand over time,” said Shaivitz.
In addition to modernization, the CIOs also discussed their plans to implement AI at the state and local levels.
*Government Technology magazine is a sister publication to Industry Insider — Texas.
State Agency CIOs Talk Key Modernization Spending Areas
According to three state-level CIOs, areas in need of modernization include broadband, mainframe, applications and cybersecurity.
