Florida lawmakers, fed up with failed IT projects and the inability to peg responsibility for tech problems has voted to create a new state technology agency with the governor and cabinet in charge. Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, who sponsored the IT bill said the state spends about $2 billion a year on computer systems and high-tech equipment and services. But he said some big-ticket projects have flopped, costing the state millions and diverting time and money into clean-up work instead of public services.
Most recently a massive air-conditioning failure at a Florida office complex in Tallahassee disrupted state government computer traffic statewide. The outage should have been handled by a disaster recovery/backup system but despite promises, one wasn’t in place. “We have a track record of busted projects and broken budgets,” Lawson said in a statement in the Tallahassee.com Web site. “We have to do better. Damage control only takes time and money away from other priorities. It makes for easy headlines but lousy public policy.” If it is singed into law the bill would: The Florida Senate today approved SB 1974, which would * Create the Agency for Enterprise Information Technology within the Executive Office of the Governor * Provide for the governor and cabinet to be the head of the agency * Require that the agency be a separate budget entity that is not subject to the control of the Executive Office of the Governor * Provide for an executive director of the agency to be subject to confirmation by the senate * Provide for the executive director to be the chief information officer of the state and the executive sponsor for all enterprise information technology projects, and more. “Obviously, we’ve had a less-than-stellar record when it comes to IT projects, particularly the very large ones, in the state of Florida,” said Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel Weatherford, who has a companion IT bill pending as well. “We’re hoping the bill will create more accountability and efficiency, especially in those big IT projects.”
