Rauner Creates New Centralized Department Of Information Technology
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Gov. Bruce Rauner has announced the creation of new department that consolidates all of the state's information technology functions into one agency.
The governor brought the Statehouse press corps to a crowded basement file room in the Springfield headquarters of the Illinois Department of Corrections to illustrate the inefficiency of the current structure.
"What you see here is just one of our critical operations within the Department of Corrections; our transfer coordinator's office," said assistant IDOC director Gladyse Taylor as she stood in a room full of file folders. "This division processes an average of 185 offenders throughout our system on a daily basis."
Until now, IT services had been spread across the state's various agencies. The governor said, under the current patchwork of IT services, some agencies are using software as old as 1974, and said some IT systems at the state can't even work with each other.
Rauner signed an executive order to create the new Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT), as part of his Accelerating Illinois Modernization (AIM) initiative.
"We hope to implement this consolidation fairly quickly, bring every agency's IT department in under this new agency, as well as Central Management Services – CMS's – IT infrastructure effort; bring it all into one consolidated effort," he said.
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Illinois Chief Information Officer Hardik Bhatt will be the director of the newly create agency. He said the new agency will focus on using technology to improve service for Illinois residents.
"I don't know when last time [was] I walked into a bank physically to transact anything. Unfortunately, the Illinois taxpayer does not have the same experience when they interact with state government," he said.
Rauner said the reorganization won't cost the state any money, because it is just a change of management structure. He did not have an estimate for how much money the consolidation would save.
The state has approximately 1,700 employees involved in IT services, and spends about $800 million a year on those systems.
