Governance frameworks are generally created to provide new capability for decision-making in organizations. As more and more governments are organizing programs and service areas from an enterprise perspective, it becomes necessary to create new enterprise governance structures. Information technology is one area where governments around the world are adopting enterprise orientations as a way to coordinate activities and to leverage investments.

New levels of capability for coordinated action across organizational boundaries are required in order for government to realize the transformative potential of technology and cope with new economic imperatives. This report outlines five recommendations for change developed through a collaborative, consensus-driven process conducted by CTG on behalf of the New York State CIO community. These recommendations are targeted at building new capability for enterprise information technology investment decision making for New York State. The recommendations extend existing enterprise IT governance capability by introducing a new level of transparency in decision making, increasing the opportunity for alignment of IT investments with New York State’s strategic priorities, and fostering the development of policies and standards to guide those investments.

Over the last fifteen years, the role of IT in state government has grown in prominence, which has drawn attention to how IT is governed at the state level. This report reviews enterprise IT governance arrangements in thirteen states (California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia). These states were selected to create a diverse set of examples and to gain a broad picture of state enterprise IT governance efforts in the United States. There are a total of five data summaries included within the report. First is a high-level comparison of state enterprise IT governance elements. This comparison is followed by a more detailed overview of three enterprise IT governance components: state CIO Councils, state executive IT boards, and budgetary authority for IT decisions. Finally, the report concludes with in-depth profiles and models of state enterprise IT governance arrangements in each of the thirteen states. Together, these resources provide one of the most comprehensive reviews of public sector IT governance currently available.

While public officials at all levels of government play important roles in interoperability efforts, government leaders alone have the power to alleviate the institutional constraints that impede these potentially transformative, but highly complex enterprise initiatives. Unfortunately, while leaders have the unique power to make these changes, experience shows that the policy environments they have created, or in many cases inherited, often limit the capability of governments to share authority, to collaborate, and to jointly and strategically manage enterprise initiatives. To change this, leaders must understand the link between their policy decisions and the capability of governments to create the systems necessary to share information and other resources across boundaries. This paper is for government leaders and presents a unique focus on creation of the policy and management capability, rather than technical capability, necessary to create interoperable government,. It presents a set of recommendations to guide these leaders in the development of policies and principles for action.

This paper presents a framework for governments as they begin to move beyond the vision of a more effective government to the reality. Governments are finding that a typical hierarchical bureaucracy is not necessarily the best form of organization to meet citizen and other demands. Rather, governments are finding that a network form of organization where new groupings of persons and organizations must learn to work together and share information, exchange knowledge, and respond to demands in new ways is more appropriate. Interoperability is key to the success of these government networks. The framework focuses first on understanding the capabilities needed to develop and manage (i.e., plan, select, control, and evaluate) initiatives to improve interoperability among government agencies and their network partners, and second on determining the right mix of capabilities needed to share information across a network of organizations. The complete framework is provided for immediate use by government managers to assess existing and needed capabilities for improving government interoperability.

 

• New York State Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO)
• New York State Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council

• Brian Scott, Director, Information Systems and Health Statistics Group, New York State Department of Health
• Daniel Chan, Chief Information Officer, New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance
• David Gardam, Chief Information Officer, New York State Office of Alcohol & Substance Abuse Services
• David Walsh, Chief Information Officer, New York State Education Department
• Ed Hemminger, Chief Information Officer, Ontario County
• Kevin Belden, Deputy Comptroller/Chief Information Office, New York State Office of the State Comptroller
• Nancy Mulholland, Chief Information Officer, New York State Department of Transportation
• Anne Roest, Deputy Commissioner, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice
• Robert Vitello, Chief Information Officer, New York State Department of Labor
• William Travis, Jr., Deputy Commissioner/Chief Information Officer, New York State Office of Children and Family Services

• Broome County Government
• Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority
• New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications
• New York State Assembly
• New York State Board of Elections
• New York State Cyber Security & Critical Infrastructure
• New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets
• New York State Department of Civil Service
• New York State Department of Correctional Services
• New York State Department of Education
• New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
• New York State Department of Health
• New York State Department of Labor
• New York State Department of State
• New York State Department of Transportation
• New York State Division of the Budget
• New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services
• New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs
• New York State Division of Motor Vehicles
• New York State Division of Parole
• New York State Division of Probation & Correctional Alternatives
• New York State Division of State Police
• New York State Division of the Budget
• New York State Dormitory Authority
• New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
• New York State Forum
• New York State Governor's Office of Employee Relations
• New York State Governor's Office of Regulatory Reform
• New York State Insurance Department
• New York State Metropolitan Transit Authority
• New York State Office for the Aging
• New York State Office of Alcohol & Substance Abuse Services
• New York State Office of Children and Family Services
• New York State Office of General Services
• New York State Office of Homeland Security
• New York State Office of Homeland Security
• New York State Office of Mental Health
• New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
• New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance
• New York State Office of the Aging
• New York State Office of the Medicaid Inspector General
• New York State Office of the State Chief Information Officer and the Office for Technology
• New York State Office of the State Comptroller
• New York State Thruway Authority
• New York State Workers' Compensation Board
• Onondaga County Government
• Ontario County Government
• Schoharie County Government
• Washington County Government
• Westchester County Government

• California Office of the State Chief Information Officer
• Indiana Office of Technology
• Kansas Department of Administration, Enterprise Technology Initiatives
• Kentucky Commonwealth Office of Technology
• Michigan Department of Information Technology
• Minnesota Office of Enterprise Technology
• Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services
• Oregon Enterprise Information Strategy and Policy Division
• South Dakota Bureau of Information and Telecommunications
• Tennessee Department of Finance & Administration, Office for Information Resources

In partnership with the NYS CIO Council and the NYS Office of the Chief Information Officer and Office for Technology (CIO/OFT), CTG initiated a project to generate a set of recommendations for enterprise IT governance for NYS government. The recommendations in this report relate to the components of the enhanced enterprise IT governance structure and the implementation of those components, which were collaboratively developed with key stakeholders within NYS, including state and local government CIOs, state control agencies, and CIO/OFT. The project drew on insights gained within NYS, as well as IT governance experiences nationwide, lessons from the private sector, and frameworks developed in the academic literature. The project was conducted between May 2008 - August 2009 and was divided into 4 phases:

Center for Technology in Government
University at Albany, SUNY
187 Wolf Road, Suite 301
Albany, NY 12205
(518) 442-3892 (phone)
(518) 442-3886 (fax)

Donna S. Canestraro

Project Manager

(518) 442-5619