Committee on Technology and Reform Policy - 2/10/22

[Music] hello today is february 10th uh we'd like to call to order the uh it's ten at seven or i'm sorry 8 30 in the morning and call the order of the technology and reform committee tonight we don't or today we only have one uh one item on the agenda so an update or a budget presentation from commissioner tollens i think we have uh deputy commissioner eichten as well as i believe uh um rohit tandon is here as well and so what we'd like to do is uh commissioner tomes i think you've done this before introduce yourself and the four is yours thank you uh senator koran uh good morning everyone i hope you can hear me okay uh my name for the record is tara combs i am the chief information officer for the state of minnesota and the commissioner of minnesota i.t services really appreciative and thankful for the opportunity to present the governor's recommended change items that will help move technology forward for the state of minnesota to really serve minnesotans more efficiently and effectively and certainly uh lead and and support a more efficient delivery of state services uh really appreciative uh senator koran to you and senator wicklin and really the entire legislative body for all of the many contributions uh for the blue ribbon council on information technology and uh the attack and and certainly uh appreciative and look forward to this conversation today from a i'm going to provide a few slides just a little bit of background related to minute uh what we do size and scope and then uh deputy commissioner john eichen will walk through the supplemental uh budget items if that's okay from a uh overall kind of hundred thousand foot level the the mission vision and values and and the culture that we uh aspire to have that we work on so so hard is really intended to to bring about the the best of what public sector does as it relates to technology and and really using technology as a a uh facilitator for for change and opportunity and and really uh a forward-looking delivery of of government services and that's really so important to us as we are competing so hard for a very limited uh technologist uh uh landscape in in minnesota the number of technologists uh really across the country and certainly in minnesota it's it's a really really tight uh labor market and that culture of being able to to use technology uh to to really help people ultimately is one of the unbelievably most important drivers to attracting people to our uh state workforce and and really excited uh about the work that we've done in last couple two three years and the types of people that we've been able to attract technology as as you know plays a really critical role in providing state services uh really a technology underpinning in in most uh all services that are provided and across the world and in the united states never has that been more highlighted than in the last couple years uh with the with the kobit 19 pandemic as so many constructs changed people are working from different places and people are expecting to be served in different ways and we've seen that innovation uh in the private sector in so many different ways and we certainly have seen that innovation uh in in the public sector as well uh as a lot of services were delivered and rendered in ways that uh probably we would have imagined to see in five to ten years and that that you know so-called digital transformation was really uh accelerated over the last decade i think minnesota i.t services has worked incredibly hard as the internal i.t organization for the executive branch of state government we've really set a course to realize the vision of being the most innovative digital government that works for everyone and and we relentlessly work at that uh at connecting with the people that we serve and making sure that we are continually laying the groundwork for a culture that always connects with how we serve people and making sure that we serve people effectively with uh technology we aim to partner to deliver secure reliable technology solutions uh that really help everyone you see our guiding principles there are 10 guiding principles that that we really uh attempt to live by uh all the time and certainly during the pandemic many those guiding principles you know really uh uh carried us well uh and and a lot of them not always easy embracing change the change items that we're going to discuss with you today certainly are uh a lot about embracing change not just related to how services are delivered but also how technologies work uh in a really positive way measuring uh using data to to really inform uh the decisions that we make and and you know really want to highlight the engaging people with empathy just making sure that we understand that the impacts that technology has and how technology is viewed and how services are viewed are uh very different and and our goal of course to serve all minnesotans irrespective of where you are in a uh consistent manner uh and engaging uh from an empathetic perspective as it relates to uh the role that technology plays uh next slide please so just a couple of uh numbers just to share with you minnesota i.t services has approximately 2400 staff we work across 90 plus physical locations we currently have a mixture of staff members that are in an office or on-site location uh some of our our staff have worked diligently throughout the pandemic uh from beginning to end in in office locations uh really you know putting themselves at risk but really putting the work that they do ahead of everything else and then we have a large percentage of our workforce that also uh works remotely and i'm really proud of the work uh that that our technologists public sector sector technologists have done we support the entirety of the executive branch over 35 000 end users we have an application portfolio of approximately 2800 agency applications at over 1300 locations so a lot of complexity uh and and certainly the application portfolio and we'll get into that with some of the change items really that is uh the the transactions that power uh if you will the business of state government and and and being able to really mature that portfolio to reduce risk related to cyber threats but also reduce risk of tech debt and make sure that technology is an innovative force that allows for the an efficient and effective delivery of services is incredibly important we oversee approximately a little bit over 300 projects with major i.t components certainly the entirety of the supplemental uh budget that the governor has proposed includes many items as as any uh proposed budget uh includes many items that have technology underpinnings and and we're really eager and excited to deliver on those projects as efficiently and effectively and as senator koran and and senator ricklin are aware the uh things that we have done related to maturing that approach together with our business partners related to implementing a modernization playbook uh the methodology that we look to deliver projects and so much of that is really centered around providing and delivering value as quickly as possible a move away from you know really large monolithic projects that only deliver value at a longer period of time to ones that deliver and prove out value much quicker the project budget is approximately 300 million dollars just from a uh numbers perspective we uh deliver approximately 3.5 million

emails uh per week and certainly during the pandemic and and the period afterwards in this period of hyper productivity have seen some of those kind of productivity uh metrics if you will increase where the number of messages that are received the number of messages that are sent by technologists the number of meetings that are attended uh by the executive branch as a whole has gone up from an infrastructure perspective we maintain approximately 7 000 servers uh in a variety of ways from a solutioning perspective just wanted to call out uh from a philosophical approach if you will when there's a new business need we really look to see if we can rent a solution first and and rent a solution sometimes is analogous to consuming a cloud-based solution but we look to see if we can rent a solution first uh if we can't rent a solution we look to see if we can buy a solution for procuring uh what is sometimes referred to as a cots solution procuring a vendor-based solution that is deployed on infrastructure as uh such as those servers that are illuminated and then if we can't rent something and if we can't buy something really uh then that's that space where you're into building something but we really only want to build something where the need is so unique and the benefit for the executive branch uh is so unique that it calls for a a custom effort so really priority is rent buy and last build next slide please just a a quick slide uh to share with you uh how a minute is funded uh approximately 646 million dollars of technology spend uh if you will that uh minute uh helps to deliver on uh only one percent of our funding approximately one percent of our funding is is actually general fund uh the the blue slice kind of at the top 193 million dollars are uh services that we provide to the enterprise that you know generally all agencies consume in one way uh shape or another things like telephony type services communication and collaboration services network services those kind of core services that any organization any enterprise whether it's private sector or public sector provides to make sure that office workers are productive and then the bottom slice really points at that uh it application and projects uh fund which is the uh predominant or the larger uh share of those and these ratios are important uh because they kind of get at uh how much you know new are you doing how much are you able to to transform uh the existing services that uh yes next slide please so wanted to take uh just a second on on this slide and and apologize uh but i want to really take a moment because when we think about our supplemental budget items that the governor has recommended uh they they really come down to uh a common set of uh uh really really important things uh for state government i believe that uh are provided in a number of different uh supplemental change items but they really all get at the same thing so i'd just like to take a moment just to read this aging technology increases cyber and operational risk and makes it more challenging for minnesotans to access services modernizing this technology via cloud platforms will reduce risk improve resilience and transform minnesotans experience when enacting with interacting with state government and i think i apologize for my dog in the background i really think that the uh collective of what we have done what the legislature has done from a cyber security perspective is incredibly important and it has really improved our ability to defend and respond but building bigger walls alone can't always protect us sometimes we need to make sure that while we're building these walls as it relates to cyber defenses that we're also transforming those things that are within those walls and leveraging cloud-based services where we only pay for what we use and improving service areas uh with significant technical debt and technical debt you know frequently also means uh ineffective or inefficient uh business process or service delivery is really vital to protecting the digital assets of the state so with that i'd like to turn it over to deputy commissioner john eichthon to just go into detail on the supplemental budget items thank you commissioner commissioner tomes before you move on um that on the one uh financial figure uh you listed 300 million dollars minute budget and then you showed all of the others spend i don't know some 670 million dollars um with the 300 million dollars for a minute as you described in in the initial statement does that include just those housed within the minute facilities of your staff or those the staff all throughout the agencies um that doesn't seem to be differentiated in this slide set so could you clarify that for us uh brandon if you could if you could go to uh the next slide so the uh the spend here is for the entirety of uh things that are spent on technology related items which would include services that the state consumes so not just services that uh minute technologists directly uh deliver services that we consume from from uh external providers uh the the fast services would be an example of that so this spend includes all of that 193 million dollars is really that set of enterprise services uh that are really you know it's a little bit more than this but it's really office worker productivity those things that allow an office to exist the networks the wireless networks desktop support office and collaboration tools uh security software that that certainly uh protects all those things uh virtual private networks to work remotely or remote working construct and then the 419 million dollars are it applications and projects that uh minute supports sometimes delivered via external uh partners frequently delivered via external partners where we play an oversight role uh in managing those vendors and making sure that uh the uh vital uh connections and and integrations it exists thank you commission jones and so we have uh um i and i i'm remiss for not introducing the newest member to our committee senator hoffman senator hoffman uh follow-up to that question absolutely thank you uh chair uh koran i want to spend the next 45 minutes just talking about this with you so one of the things we get is the the especially in health and human services you always see uh you know there's a there's an i.t side of it and and i'm i'm trying to understand does minute staff assign to different state agencies or minute staff assigned you know within you know other jurisdictions is that counted in your 300 million uh commissioner or because we we do see other slides from other agencies that that you'll embed you know it services and minute services in there and i can differentiate between the service side of it but i'm trying to get to the personnel side of it if you could clarify that for uh chair koran and this committee that would be great thanks commissioner tomes uh commissioner uh senator koran and committee members uh thank you for for clarifying that question the answer is yes uh so it is included in this number so when you see change items from uh various uh agencies like the department of human services for whatever uh components are part of their change items that number is included in this so it is not additive to this that includes uh the minute technologists or the types of services that are procured so this number is inclusive of the entirety thank you commissioner tomes and uh so before we move to mr eggton uh senator drahan question thank you chair uh okay can you hear me there sorry uh thank you chair and commissioner and thank your staff for us um my my question has to do with all those applications you guys try to keep up and running and i know a lot of them are antiquated um you know it it would be helpful for us if we had some kind of list and i know 2800 is quite a few apps but uh or applications of you know kind of the age of some of these applications and probably more importantly the usage of some of these applications how do you guys what metrics do you use to track a priority list or or do you have a list of um applications that get used more than others commission tons senator uh koran and and senator dram thank you uh for that question uh we do uh maintaining an application portfolio if you will for uh an enterprise is is really important over the last 24 to 36 months we have really spent a lot of time maturing the process methodology tools that we use to maintain that application portfolio uh ultimately we on a on a regular basis present that application portfolio uh via our cbtos to agency uh leadership to uh you know commissioners assistant commissioners to agency leadership so that they understand the value that applications play within their agency and and business really makes that vital decision related to divesting out of uh applications that are no longer serving their their business need we really do uh believe though it is uh an important role that we play in sharing that application portfolio the age of it uh the effectiveness or ineffectiveness uh at times certainly the technology that and we do have uh that application portfolio enumerated out with uh uh attributes such as the types of technology and age and one of the supplemental uh budget items uh senator graham is geared you know towards specifically that those areas that are frequently underfunded or not funded where applications may not be necessarily even meeting business needs directly or meeting minnesotans needs directly where there's also a significant amount of technical debt really old technology that poses a tremendous cyber risk and so it's really a combination of being able to improve business processes service delivery to minnesotans and reducing the cyber debt that really gets at uh the the tremendous risk that we face we do have that list uh certainly would be willing to uh would love to follow up with you uh related to you know the best way to uh uh put that together uh i think one item that that is really important uh in this discussion is that our business partners drive that application portfolio you know they really are the uh decision makers related to the you know what in terms of applications uh the resiliency needs of applications we prioritize our application portfolio in different priorities there are priority one applications which is you know really the biggest of applications those that at times may pose a life safety risk if you will uh or you know really a a tremendous risk to minnesotans things like unemployment insurance uh you know is an example of a priority one application we have priority two applications and then prior to three applications which are the smaller ones for organizations in generally uh large complex organizations application portfolio rationalization being able to divest out of applications that are no longer really needed or being able to combine is really important and that's why the work that we've done in building our methodology and process surrounding the application for portfolio so that our business partners can make those decisions is really important thank you senator um commissioner chelms along the line so would would you would you provide a copy of that um inventory i think it's going to be that item that drives further conversations based on your future presentation and our continued work on modernization of not just the infrastructure backend but the forward-facing consumer agency or all of those dependent solution or all the dependent um people are driving service providing service either locally regionally or whatever so if you could do that that would help us get that better understanding because i know we've talked in the past as well and i know you provided last year a brief list of what you thought was a high high priority uh modernization uh effort for self-service so and i think we've spoken in the past we need to see that holistically because we may see some high priority needs that may need legislative uh clarity to to allow us to move in some of those higher priority modernizations or move into self-service so um if you would share that with the with all the members on the committee we'd be uh we'd appreciate it so with that um we'll move on to uh commissioner deputy commissioner eichten commissioner eichten please state your name and and uh position for the record thank you uh mr chair and members my name is john eckton i'm the deputy commissioner for minnesota i.t services i'll walk through uh the change items that minute is putting forward through the governor's budget recommendations and a little more detail here so starting off with the the first change item targeted application modernization as the commissioner mentioned the state really faces a significant amount of i.t debt resulting from the development of applications over the last decades uh that now stand in need of modernization and replacement the funding proposed in this change item would enable a much more systematic approach to the modernization of these at-risk and aging applications uh again amongst that that significant you know 2000 plus application portfolio it'll do that by providing funding at an enterprise level to support a more strategic and consistent approach to modernization at the most fundamental level these aging applications create risk in our overall it environment not only puts at risk the agencies who rely on the specific applications but it also puts at risk the whole of executive branch i.t operations and ultimately from a business perspective these aging applications can strain and hold back business partners from really transforming the way that they deliver services and doing that in a more modern human centered manner there are several benefits to taking a more systematic approach to application modernization first and i would say most importantly uh we will be able to address application level vulnerabilities that exist in aging tech systems and components these vulnerabilities create doors for cyber actors to enter to move laterally in our environments and ultimately to to steal or hold hostage data that is critical to effective government operations so an enterprise approach will enable us will enable us to standardize and these modernized applications on commercially available platforms and services and what that will do is reduce the complexity of our overall environment um complexity that's really resulted from the previously siloed development of custom applications and agencies across state government over years and decades by reducing that complexity and by housing these applications on cloud-based infrastructure as we'll get into in the second change item with more cost effective continuity capabilities we'll improve the reliability of these applications and help ensure that state government service delivery can operate on a stable resilient foundation moving forward lastly it's important to note how this type of enterprise approach enables the state to advance recommendations from the governor's what was previously the blue ribbon council on i.t it's now the technology advisory

council the chair senator wicklund or members in addition to recommendations uh from the office of the legislative auditor so in a lot of those discussions uh in the tech in the brc we talked about how many of the most fundamental components that dictate or contribute to the success or failure of it modernization efforts really have nothing to do with coding or servers success depends on how well we and our business partners engage with frontline staff users with stakeholders to understand their pain points and their problems uh success depends on a willingness to change to change the way we do our work on the i.t side and on the business side and to alter if not overhaul long-standing business processes and put minnesotans at the center of our system and service delivery designs by taking an enterprise approach to modernization of these service delivery tools we can help ensure that these best practices are present in the specific projects and initiatives that result from this funding and that ultimately we're leveraging these funds to provide the type of digital experience that minnesotans have increasingly come to expect when interacting with organizations in both public and private so for this work minute is requesting roughly 5.25 million in the current biennium and 14.625 million uh in the 2425 biennium

we also want to just illustrate if we could uh briefly and i don't want to repeat a you know presentation that the chair and and other members may have seen an attack committee meeting uh but to provide you an example of what this sort of looks like from a user perspective can you give you a side by side of two of an old existing legacy solution if we could advance the slide here to apply mn which was the legacy solution essentially for the department of human services for a cut a customer portal for the application uh and for different assistance programs snap tanf cash assistance these types of dhs programs in on average it was a one hour long application process uh there was no ability uh via the online service to do document uploading as you can see with the screen on the left there it was not user friendly from a device perspective you know it was navigable uh via a computer but via a phone or a tablet it would be a significant challenge for a user and once modernized this is a modernization effort that was a partnership with code for america if you're familiar with that organization you can see the experience on the right it's a much more human-centered uh experience a simplified design a 15-minute application process the ability to to do document upload via the camera on the phone uh live chat assistance for users who may be experiencing problems and then at the end a user satisfaction assessment to understand was this experience a positive one and overall the the user feedback has been very positive for this tool you'll see on uh some examples of the user feedback that's come in through mn benefits you know down in the middle i'm 76 and completed the app without difficulty very user friendly not a ton of text to wade through uh on the far left it was extremely easy to fill out took me way less than 20 minutes to apply i will say in addition the feedback that we've heard from the counties has been very positive that there was an initial group of counties that were part of the of a pilot group it's now been expanded statewide as of last year and it's become a pretty central tool for uh case managers and county staff to be able to direct clients to upload documents as necessary to you know maintain their their eligibility or respond to information requests and i recall put a smile on our face to hear deputy commissioner chuck johnson talk about he thinks in his uh his 30 years i believe of experience in the human services world that uh there's not a single you know sort of distinct action that the department's taken that that he can think of that drew more of a pleased and and satisfied response from the counties and that is really that power to to delight is a phrase we use uh related to human-centered design and it really uh speaks to the power of technology to make uh these experiences smoother and make interacting with government easier so moving on to the the second change item it is related to the first if if the first is about modernization of those business specific applications that um as the commissioner said transact the work of state government think of this one as as the foundation upon which those applications live and modernizing that foundation uh submitted enterprise cloud transformation change item is really intended to accelerate the state's transition from traditional on-premise hosted it infrastructure into more modern public cloud service environments enabling minute and our business partners to realize a range of benefits that have driven organizations around the globe really toward the use of cloud technologies these include these benefits they include built-in continuity resilience and disaster recovery capabilities capabilities that would not be feasible from a budget perspective via the current on-premise hosting model it also includes scalable cyber security capabilities that allow us to much more cost effectively improve our security posture uh opportunities to speed innovation and enable much more rapid solutioning via cloud service capabilities that are just not available within physical data centers and that really are baked in by design in a cloud environment and when i talk about a cloud environment so being very clear think of the big public cloud service providers uh amazon web services microsoft azure uh google cloud um those are the type of providers that in general that the industry is heading toward from a hosting perspective uh and those are the types of services that the state would consume via this change item as well one of the challenges that any organization has though when making a move to the cloud is a cost bubble resulting from the really the overlap period that's the period during which the organization is still in the midst of the transition and incurring expenses uh for both the cloud hosting solutions and on-premise hosting services and funding of this change item is intended to mitigate that impact and enable a much more rapid transition to the cloud minimizing that overlap period and really hastening the realization of both the cost and the capability benefits of cloud computing uh and i wanted to just reflect for a moment on on what cloud computing demonstrated for us uh throughout the last two years of the covet 19 pandemic uh the the agency that was really a leader in this space you know working with a very skilled and committed minute team is the department of health they embarked on a cloud journey several years ago they're really the the only agency that has the the vast majority of their systems currently hosted via the cloud and it was that capability that really enabled them to scale solutions to implement solutions rapidly to buttress legacy solutions that were still being maintained but to build capability around them that would enable them to manage really unprecedented volumes and constant demands for new capabilities and data interchange to aid in in pandemic response efforts uh it was uh a clear indicator for us that uh from a risk and operational perspective we needed to accelerate the shift for uh the rest of the executive branch agencies commissioner we do have a question um before you continue on um senator it's great that you highlight department health and human services on both spectrums right the modernization of the on the front end users um for the agency that still has green screens for the county customers so uh we we i know we're working on that but it's great to see the dichotomy of 30 year old technology that our counties are forced to utilize so senator hoffman has a question thank you mr chairman and john thank you what what prompted me is is this this conversation of integration of services and in the presentation on tuesday the department of human services uh is looking at a 77.5 million dollar investment um specifically funding and supporting their i.t systems work in in transforming human service delivery and create an integrated person-centered experience aside from that what what they did highlight there john was the mn benefits application and so help me understand this if if if we're requesting in the department of human services 68 ftes specifically in supporting i.t systems that comes out of the human services bucket and if i'm getting too in the weeds on here i'm just trying to help me understand where the the process of the funding stream comes in from because that that mn benefits application first of all john kudos to ever in your department uh designed that because that absolutely was a game changer for a lot of people out there and so um but but take me back to this agency-wide transition to a more agile i.t and uh how is that affected within what you're saying chris schneiden uh absolutely miss mr chair uh senator senator hoffman so i'll try and tease these apart to bring some clarity because it is it is a complex situation from a funding perspective so the the change items that the agencies bring forward are change items to modernize specific specific applications that support their work and they'll include you know as in the case of the dhs transformation change item the business staff that are necessary to you know potentially backfill positions that are involved in the modernization work it'll include funding for the minute staff that are necessary to advance the modernization as well as funding for you know vendor services any contractors that are needed you'll see that in really every committee change items moving forward for those types of of efforts what minute is proposing is a central enterprise pool of funds to target a specific set of applications that are they're not the the massive applications like a mets or an mmis or a maxis or a gentax or min drive we're talking about uh the the multitude of applications that are within that 2800 application portfolio that are smaller to medium-sized in nature they're where a more targeted sort of systematic data data-driven approach can reduce overall risk um and ensure that the projects we do take on that the best practices around business process modernization are being employed so we're actually proposing a a change to the overall approach to how we fund it modernization and approaching that from an a systematic enterprise perspective and target those smaller to medium-sized applications that don't always rise to the urgency level uh of an agency change item to just pivot back to the conversation you're having previously with the commissioner that uh that pie chart represents all i t spent for all agencies the vast majority of that funding flows through the agencies and the minute charges back for its services so um want to be really clear that these are not duplicative requests they're actually if you think of the dhs service transformation requests in minutes they're quite complimentary because uh the change item before us here is is really laying the foundation via cloud services for these new modernized dhs applications to be built in addition what dhs is proposing is really a change to the way that minute staff and their business staff at dhs and vendor partners interact in the way that we maintain support and enhance it systems and it's it's com it's perfectly aligned with the recommendations that are coming out of the the blue ribbon council and the technology advisory committee that we need to as the commissioner said previously stop engaging in these multi-year monolithic system implementation projects we need to work much more iteratively to return value faster we need constant business engagement and an ability to make swift decisions in order to maximize the value return on these it investments and then we need to use best of breed solutions from the market and integrate those solutions together uh to create an environment that will best support the services rather than uh hope putting sort of all of our eggs in one monolithic system basket uh going behind a curtain for many years and then and then coming back uh in hopes that we have we've delivered uh a system that's going to work for everyone it needs to be a much more user-centered iterative process where we are constantly enhancing uh constantly looking for feedback from users from the counties from the dhs staff from from the ultimate clients of these services so that we can iteratively improve them over time and really maintain them as as foundational products that are needed for effective service delivery uh i hope that that helps tease it apart uh to some extent tonight that i've brought clarity and not more confusion to the situation senator hoffman thank you thank you mr chair as a fault yeah john i wish you would have been there tuesday to to uh when when the uh assistant commissioners were presenting this all we really saw in this service early transformation continuation was just 68 ftes and in this 60 70 7.5 million

dollar um budget and it was like a sticker shock and if if the information you just gave to chair karan's committee uh would have been a part of that that presentation on tuesday i i think there would have been a better understanding of how uh minit is integrated within the the department this has been very helpful uh mr chair for me and the two different hats i wear thanks thanks commissioner eichten thank you mr chair uh sort of i guess transitioning back to to the uh slide deck here i'll just close this change item number two out uh this for this work minutes requesting 14.5 million across two biennia that would help bring in additional workforce and professional technical assistance to support this transition as well as to procure required software services and microsoft licensing for for cloud-based communications collaboration and low-code no code development tools just to give you some of the specifics behind the funding details transitioning to the third change item uh i believe we we can use that slide if we really want to uh nerd out and dive into some of the architectural details though i might ask for my my colleague chief technology officer nyberg to weigh in if the committee is interested in doing that but continuing forward as far as the change items the third one is related to the cyber security grant program or more applicable the state and local cyber security grant program which was part of the federal infrastructure investment and jobs act that passed in august of 2021. in order to receive these federal funds for state and local cyber security needs state governments are required to work with local local governments on the development of joint cyber security plans that ultimately guide the allocation of these grant dollars the program requires that 80 percent of total funding be used on projects supporting cyber improvements for local government with the remaining 20 available for state initiatives uh the allocation of this funding would be guided by a cyber security planning committee uh that minute would take the lead in forming incorporating uh representation from various levels of government uh cities counties tribal governments and while more detailed program guidelines are still being developed by the federal cyber security and infrastructure security agency we know these state matching dollars will be required to pull down the associated federal dollars and and support these needed enhancements at the state and local level so with ransomware events on their eyes a lot of many of them targeting local governments that lack the funding to sufficiently secure their operations this funding will be critical to help combat these shared threats to the reliable operation of government at all levels so you can see the details here a state match of roughly 1.8 million in the

current biennium to pull down 10.8 in federal dollars and then 2.3 in the next biennium to pull down seven point roughly 7.2 in federal dollars

the next change item is related to the children's cabinet as change item would create a dedicated funding source for investment in interagent cit initiatives that really intended to bridge agency lines better serve minnesota children and families through more integrative service delivery mechanisms as we work toward more human approaches to providing government service it becomes clearer and clearer that the traditional agency structures for delivering services can hinder our ability to to create smooth citizen eccentric experiences for families children's cabinet has identified opportunities to bridge those agency divides to deliver more intelligent services that reduce barriers for families improve overall efficiency and effectiveness through interagency data sharing and service integration however the traditional agency based it funding model that we were discussing earlier can can hinder their ability to advance these opportunities and ultimately realize the benefits uh from a more integrated interagency approach in areas such as childhood development screening easier access to needed re resources for improving early learning and development outcomes school-based nutrition programs among other initiatives for this change item minute is requesting a million dollars in the current biennium and 2 million in the upcoming biennium moving to the see the fifth change item here this is this change item is related to technology digital accessibility uh and this funding would support an external third-party assessment of current applications uh in the and online services in the state's environment um as the pace of technology advancement continues to grow it's critical that we maintain a focus on ensuring the accessibility of state services for minnesotans with disabilities in this case accessibility via you know web-based digital platforms the pandemic has really highlighted this need as so much of our daily lives have increasingly relied on the ability to interact via digital means and this third-party assessment would help us identify gaps and and opportunities to improve the accessibility of of current state applications and online services and then uh the last change item uh is again related to technical technology accessibility uh but this is this is not a general fund change item this is funding from the telecommunications access minnesota fund that has been used to support the office of the chief information accessibility officer jay wyant if any of you've interacted with him he has a limited staff one other full-time staff person and a student worker uh that that do their do make a valiant effort to promote a community a really a network of accessibility officers in agencies on the business and the minute side across the executive branch but they're experiencing increasing cost pressures so this is what amounts to an operating adjustment for that group to maintain current service levels and and frankly keep that sufficient funding for that student worker position to stay on board i'm happy to answer any questions the committee may have and appreciate the time thanks commissioner we have a question from senator port thank you chair koran going back to the the children's cabinet change item um can you talk a little bit more about that um and and how that collaboration between the agencies might help to to reach more people in minnesota to help uh connect them to benefits uh mr chair senator port yeah i would speak to this at a few different levels and a commissioner may want to weigh in as well here because he said a lot of interaction with the children's cabinet really since the beginning of this administration there's been a real focus put on children and families and how can we can deliver services to those two children and families without forcing them to navigate the internal agency silos of state government you know the average citizen does not care whether it's the department of human services department of education a county what part of government is delivering the service and technology uh including the the item we highlighted before with min benefits highlights an opportunity to really break down those barriers to create doors human-centered design doors into state government services that families can interact with and provide information once to us instead of providing it multiple times to multiple agencies uh to be determined eligible for different programs it also uh the cabinet is also looking at these opportunities to enhance data sharing across agencies to more uh to be able to better measure whether we're actually achieving the outcomes related to children and families that we're hoping to achieve to better design changes in service uh delivery mechanisms uh and use data to to really inform those changes and make sure that ultimately um the dollars that are being put into children and family supports are realizing the outcomes that we want to achieve uh and that's they've made significant progress in breaking down some of the um sort of barriers it from a policy and legal perspective to you know how we can better work together across state agencies but but one of the obstacles they've hit is that when they identify these opportunities even if they're not you know hugely expensive they run up against the individual agencies i.t priorities that may be driven by changes in statute that occur every session changes in federal regulations oftentimes the projects the i.t projects that result are not really optional they need to be done for legal compliance reasons and having a pool of dollars available to the cabinet since they are not a state agency per se will enable them to to really act on these opportunities and overcome that ex that pre-existing i.t priority obstacle that too often

they've they've run up against and that's something working with them we've recognized because ultimately it's it's minute doing the i.t work in the end but it has to be translated through the business priority setting as the commissioner said that that each agency does this creates sort of a release valve and a that funding can be directed and be brought to bear to make sure that that opportunity can be taken advantage of without having to de-prioritize you know a legal compliance project or a security improvement project senator port follow-up that's really helpful just uh appreciate that thank you thank you uh commissioner i can so along those lines i i like um us putting a user interface in there that that really covers up the ineffectiveness of government just that just the cross-agency um complexities when somebody you know regards to who they are we focused a lot on on children families and learning that's wonderful and we should continue to do that what i don't hear is that dialogue being talked about across all of minnesota's businesses and every individual who's required to interact with government you know i i personal experience and so you know we did the very thing and heck in the in the 2000s with the department of revenue and the uh department of deed and when you look at those you have the same businesses at the same port reporting and payment requirements and quarterly and in ui and through their modernization efforts and that the desired agencies always pull back and and operate in that isolated environment instead of having a unified uh environment operating with a single business id file and pain in one through one portal and then disseminating to the various agencies and instead they roll back to two individual business id numbers to individual transaction dual reporting for the same people and those are costs to all businesses in minnesota so what i'd like to see is is for you guys when we talk about these things you should be driving that across every platform i know you you are you work for the agencies but i want to know who that is if you're not it i'm not sure who would be it um to bring through when we inventory all those agencies and and not just bringing to the inventory of the agencies we should be inventorying who do they interact with and how many times is a single business required to interact with how many different agencies and the frequency that's the matrix we need to look at to make sure we're actually serving all minnesotans because i truly believe i mean this is one way we can mask some structural ineffectiveness or or inefficiencies that we have county green screens and all those things but for our citizens again they don't have a choice so i i would love to see as we roll out that matrix and we look at self-service i'd really like to see the matrix as we roll out to who's required to internet interact with who and when and and i think you guys are certainly the agency to do that so um any comments from commissioner i know there was no question embedded in there but uh if not senator whitman does have a question senator whitcomb uh thank you mr chair um yeah i just was wondering if um if either commissioner acton or um see so tannen could talk about how the infrastructure of cyber security infrastructure work is is it embedded in any of these change items or um or is there another way that you're kind of in a parallel path assessing and maintaining your infrastructure i'm just wondering if if there is i mean that you've spoken about how there is a cyber security component to the the transformation that you're considering with the cloud transformation item and the application modernization item um can you talk a little bit about a little bit more detail about how um how we're you know strengthening our overall cyber security is it coming about as a part part of these um change requests thanks commissioner tomes would you like to direct that to one of your members absolutely uh senator koran uh senator wicklin committee members uh uh i'll ask uh our chief information security officer roy tennant to chime in but i think your question is is uh is an excellent one and it really is a little bit at the heart and root of this uh supplemental uh budget um recommendation from the governor in that you cannot secure uh technology services or services that have a technology underpinning by only investing in cyber security protections those cyber security protections are incredibly important endpoint protection denial of services uh related services our ability to react to uh cyber events you also have to get at what the actual makeup of those applications and services are and how do you improve the resiliency of those services you know certainly a move to cloud constructs that have built-in resiliency a greater security awareness if you will certainly greater resources and capacity from a partner perspective related to uh how to respond to those types of events and then also getting at that tech debt uh areas where uh patching may be prohibited where the the types of vulnerabilities as an example uh uh without you know getting in into the details not too long ago there was a a national uh alert related to a cyber related vulnerability for a particular you know application stack if you will and we had well over uh as most organizations did so that this number isn't an anomaly but we had over 300 instances of this particular uh uh technology component able to quickly react uh able to quickly remediate but it's the type of work that happens on an ongoing basis depending on how applications are architected and we won't see any less of that when you use these common components from vendors and bigger constructs our ability to make sure that we're modernizing not just the technology the cyber tools that we use to protect but also modernizing the types of services and how they're delivered uh rohit will you chime in please good morning uh mr chairman members my name is rohit tang and i'm the chief information security officer commissioner uh terry already said was almost everything i was going to cover but i might add a few more context regarding the question of one of those infrastructure elements and the item number one and two cover i think breadth of the executive branch of the infrastructure the cloud transformation is really looking at the infrastructure to see how that can be improved for the executive branch as a whole the other item i think i might call out is the modernization effort those applications also need to be modernized on that infrastructure so security was a value item listed on the slide deck that deputy eichten presented as well for the executive branch side of things but as a whole of state and that infrastructure act that got some cyber security allocation has the matching funds that needs to also benefit statewide and the matching dollars that will provide to activate the federal grant is really necessary to propel that father ahead it is important to note that the lack of formal security planning that is being defined right now as part of the idea guidance which we are still waiting on clarity from federal guidelines to really define the structure of how that will navigate it does not mean minute has not been prioritizing that support area for local governments we have for over 10 years supported local governments through our statewide security monitoring initiatives that has multiple layers of security from eminent ddos defenses to even that endpoint detection and default endpoint detection and response capabilities that commissioner thomas just referred to a few minutes ago thank you senator what coin follow-up um no i'll just um say about that grant program i'm looking forward to hearing more about the details because um i guess i'm hearing from my local communities that they are looking for ways to to get assistance with their cyber security needs because they realize it's really important at the school district and community city level so i'm looking forward to hearing more about you know how that program will get implemented and how we can kind of spread the word that that local entities who might not have known about other other possible assistants could apply for these these grants so thanks commissioner tones senator quran and uh senator wiklendt i was just going to uh mention in in uh i i i believe you are aware of this uh one of the things with that grand program uh that is is really important is that a collaborative group which includes representation from the legislature uh from the private sector from counties and cities from tribal nations uh we're gonna uh lead or put together you know that group uh we're gonna leverage the tac that is going to build that plan for exactly how we're gonna support that so i just wanna underscore that it is not gonna be a you know uh one singular perspective of the best way to deliver and and support uh those resources but really a strategic approach that makes best use of those funds what we don't want to do is uh buy a lot of things that uh you know have a security you know uh component to them but ultimately really don't uh move the state security posture forward as effectively as possible and really looking forward to that collaboration with uh many of the tac members and and we'll add additional uh external members uh private sector csos uh to that uh body to really inform the best strategy to use you know these uh really limited resources in the most effective way possible thank you commissioner tones and along those lines senator boyd couldn't follow up to that okay um along those lines in the consolidation right we we did uh we finally got the consolidation and i think one enhanced our cyber security because we have an envelope that we can more effectively manage but one of the things that we did or we talked about when we we funded the consolidation of this the data centers was a 10 million dollar savings in tails and ongoing uh because of operational costs so one where did that money go when i look at the couple of these requests they look in that that range so one if the savings weren't realized why not and two if they have been realized where did those dollars go senator koran and uh committee members uh you know as we shared on the financial slide only one percent of minutes uh funding is is general funding and so all of it is uh related to rate-based services that we provide uh or either the services that we deliver from a project and uh initiatives perspective one of the things that we do as a part of our rate setting process is we always uh go to market and benchmark the services that we provide against the marketplace with external market providers just to make sure that the types of uh services and rates and so uh you know as you can imagine as this happened not just in in government uh in minnesota uh probably slower to be honest in minnesota then it has happened generally you know uh the investment in technology and providing services is an area where organizations across the globe and across the united states continue to invest uh an ability to meet people digitally to provide digital services and so oftentimes i think our business partners as a rate decreases or rate moves or shifts that money is invested then in projects and initiatives okay excellent thank you thank you commissioner tomes and along lines of the consolidate you know that we're uh part of your funding request is to move um out from infrastructure you know physical data centers which i'm you know i'm all for but what i would have what i think we're going to want to see as we move forward is today my understanding we're only using one cloud provider so when we always look at redundancy um you're going to be hard-pressed to convince me we can always get redundancy when we limit to one provider so you have if if if you intend which i haven't heard you not um planning to use a single single provider how how is that going to work and how do we get that redundancy and uh and then the second piece to that question is does this get us to the ability to recover in real time you know we've got real-time data replication all those things and i think it brings that back um but outside of the ability to to have just pure access from a login capabilities right some physical device does it by us that and and if not what would be in the way of doing that senator uh karen and committee members and i'm going to ask chief technology officer jeff nyberg to chime in here uh just a little bit hopefully i won't answer the entire question for him but we in minnesota unequivocally are a multi-cloud uh uh technology consumer if you will and uh that multi-cloud you know really ranges from uh cloud solutions and sas services uh from a number of cloud pro

2022-02-12 01:25

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