03/19/18 Mayor's Budget Discussions: Information Technology Services
![03/19/18 Mayor's Budget Discussions: Information Technology Services 03/19/18 Mayor's Budget Discussions: Information Technology Services](/pic/03-19-18_mayor_s_budget_discussions_information_technology_services/SGw4dzRtN1hLMms_.jpeg)
Morning. Mr. Darin. I'm. I've got a very long speech here I'll be glad to read it if you'd like to hear it about how, we're starting but I think this our time is better spent if I just sort of cut to the chase, as. You. Know from working with the finance department this, is essentially. A status, quo budget year that's. Because, over the last couple of years we've seen more, than 200 million dollars in. Improvements. Which is added. Staff and, opportunities. For virtually, every department, additionally. This year revenues are not likely, to increase like they have in prior years. For. A couple of reasons including, a high, number of Appeals. Property. Tax, reappraisal. So, we're. Essentially asking departments, to come in with a status, quo budget this year the. Exception. Being that some, departments. Will have. Either. Legal. Requirements, or, new. Projects, that have already been approved or contractual. Increases. That are sort, of unavoidable. And. So. That's. Really what we're we're starting from if you could introduce, yourself, and your staff and give us a brief opening statement I'm, sure we'll have a few questions. Again. Keith Durbin chief information officer, and director of the Information Technology Services Department, my. Colleagues and I really appreciate, your time today and we very much look forward to working with you I have, five members of our executive team with me today Margaret. Keck assistant. Director for communications. And infrastructure. Greg, Nicholson, our finance manager, John, Griffey chief information security officer. Robin, mace our chief data officer and, Don Clark our assistant director for business applications, solutions. And support I also. Want to thank the staff of the Metro Nashville Network who is recording these meetings, will we're running them live on Nashville gov, and we'll post them on to YouTube channels for the public, consumption and so, with me I've got Danielle Vaughn John. Ferguson, Jeremy Dorsey behind, the camera there and Michael kill them I'm the camera right here and, also very much like to thank Aaron, Williams our. Partner. And hub, Nashville, project, for being here to, support me today, so. Mayor I TS is a, service, organization, that exists, only to, serve the needs of other departments and agencies while. We are not driving, the buses checking, out the library, books or filling the potholes our, 148. Employees, are directly, supporting, those within Metro, government that, are doing those things our.
Accomplishments. Over the past year, have been made in partnership without, departments. And agencies, with. Your office the council office in public works we rolled out hub Nashville, as a single, point of contact for, non-emergency. Resident, and visitor, requests. And issues, with. The hub and association, with the hub we released Nash View a simple, data mapping, tool that, lets neighbors see where and how, Metro. Is working, for them in their neighborhoods, by, charting requests. And status, of those requests, like property violation, hub, Nashville, requests, and building, permits and more, we. Brought additional, transparency. And accountability. To. The council, through the implementation, of updated, access, to council, agenda materials, on Nashville gov, through, our legislative, voting management, system as well, as the new. Recording. And broadcast of council committee meetings and we, completed, the work which is ready for presentation, to you of the, mayoral, working group called, connected, Nashville, which examined, a myriad, of vetted community, plans such as Nashville, next and in motion and is put forth a set of strategies to meet those, challenges, more. Quickly and effectively through, the use of technology and, data. Major. Projects, that are currently ongoing within, I TS, with. Finance, we're about a third of the way through the replacement. Of metros, enterprise, financial. Accounting, and HR system, this is known as the r12 project, with. Public Works we, continue, to provide the communications, technologies. To allow for replacement, of traffic signals with modern manageable, traffic controllers, to help ease congestion, on, our streets and we're, working closely with, MN PD on the development, of a new public safety data center at the new police headquarters which, will provide additional redundancy. For. Metros existing, data centers, as well as supporting, the Public Safety's, data, center needs, and. These projects, go on in addition to our primary, job which, is keeping metros, IT environment. Running we, serve over 60. Metro departments, agencies and authorities at. 395. Metro, sites, managing. Over eight hundred servers. 5500. Desktop computers, 2100, laptops and 600 tablets across departments, in the.
Last Year we responded, to over 50,000. Requests, for IT assistance. We. Processed, almost 67. Million, emails, we. Hosted, 20 million visits. To Nashville, gov an average of 43,000. A day and we, recorded, over 500. Unique programs, that, were shown on Metro Nashville network. So. Now turning from kind of where we are and what we're up to to our budget request we. Have as, requested. Kept the IT s budget request flat, with, the notable exception of the request, to fund metros, non-discretionary. Contractual. Obligations, for. A total, additional. Request of 2.6. Million, so. As an as a reminder I TS is a centralized, service provider with. IT s holding, the contracts, for many systems that cross cross. Metro, departments, and agency so, funding, these contractual, obligations, in their system, directly, supports, departments, and agencies that. 2.6. Million is broken, into, hardware. And software components. So. We have a requesting. Of, Hardware increase. Of five hundred and thirty-eight thousand, for contractual obligations, which, includes, maintenance. On metros, very reliable. Network, infrastructure. Our. Information. Security infrastructure, firewalls. And that kind of thing and, for, the public surface, Public, Safety 800, megahertz radio system, which I TS manages, for our public safety departments and, others including, NES. And Vanderbilt. Then. On the software side of these contractual, obligations, we. Have software requests, of 2.1, million which, includes funding, for our existing, and new, finance. And accounting system licensing, and hosting. Licensing. For metros, core. Land, and permit system called city works in. Licensing. For the system that centrally, manages, metros, public safety cameras, 4m MPD and others and other, miscellaneous smaller, contractual. Increases. Which, we have fully documented, and. Discussed with finance, and with. That I really, appreciate the time to, talk with you today about, our request, I appreciate. The opportunity to work with you and I'm, very happy to answer questions. I. Want. You to because. This is just come up before talk. About what, relationships, you might have with what I'm going to call quasi. Metro. Entities, I know in the past you've, been asked to kind. Of collaborate, with Metro schools on. Things. A. A, recent. Opportunity. Maybe even with the hospital authority, regarding. Some. Efficiencies. That if they were to come, to kind of connect with you on some things can you just kind of spend, a couple minutes kind, of talking.
Where You see opportunities, sure. I appreciate. The question, so, as. I mentioned we we work with, sixty, departments, agencies authorities. I think the only Authority we're actually not, doing anything currently. So, I may be mistaken, is the airport authority or, I think, the Airport Authority the only one so we're doing some, work with NES, we're running. There. 800, megahertz radio system, for. Schools for example they, are on our ERP system. We, work very closely with. JIS. Department. Sharing. A lot of the core network. Capabilities. And that security. Sheriff. The same way we're working very closely with MTA, for instance, on their. New, payment, system as well. There. Are opportunities. For. For. More, work, our. Philosophy, at this point is that we provide those core. Infrastructure. Commodity. Services, such, as the network such, as security services. Such as email and, one, of those opportunities to. To. Move forward, into a more collaborative approach is around the email space, one. Of the projects, that we have coming that I didn't mention is a big migration from. On, site. Premise. Hosted, email our own servers, to, the office 365 which. Is cloud-based so. That's going to be an opportunity for us to work more closely together. With. Jas. And the sheriff's office as opposed, to them needing, support their own kind. Of email services, on. Site as well we. Also, work. Really closely around information security. Policies, and procedures, and. Implementation. Of those things, so. I, guess. Some of the area, where. The. Model, that I TS it had in place for years, still applies is, that. When. Under. Mayor. Purcell, they, did a major consolidation. Of services they pretty, intentionally. Very intentionally. Left, you. Know very, vertical, services. Such. As the. Police has their. Information. Police information systems, they left they care and maintenance of those things from the programmers, and the business analysts, in those. Departments, I. Still. Feel like that makes, the, most sense because, we'll never have the expertise, that vertical. Expertise, of police. Direct. Knowledge. Of, that system similarly, for J is. An, D CSO, so, I think while, there are opportunities. They are much more limited that, then that they've been in the past. And some of the ones like you were talking about asking about the. Hospital, and some, others we have we. Have infrastructure, in place that's fiber. And, with. That fiber optic cabling, we're able to help. Reduce. Some, of the other agencies. Costs. That they're having to go. Outside, to. Look at at, having. To purchase those services, from somebody besides, us and so if we, already have that cabling, in place then we are able to, assist. With that and so we're working with General Hospital to figure out how, we might be able to help them and we also, have. Found some areas where we might be able to help em DHA, with some of those things to where, we have that infrastructure, in place and. The other area was specifically, mentioning the hospital authority as they have been hosted, in metros data center, for. Probably. Seven, or eight years now and that's a major cost savings, to them over, and keeping, money inside Metro as opposed to taking that in at a commercial hosting, provider. Let's. Start with the. Hub can, you can you summarize, going to where we are what. We've achieved so, far and. Mention. Some of the exciting, developments that may be coming. This this year thank, you for that question Shirin I appreciate it so we have finished phase one of hub which is the roll. So. Hub, Nashville, is metros, central. One-stop-shop. For, non-emergency. Requests. And issues so if a a resident. Or a visitor, sees, a pothole, they don't have to worry about till do I what's. The number for me to call did I call the mayor do I call my councilmember. Rather. It's one, number three. One one. It'll. Just like 911, for emergency service, is three one one for non-emergency. Services it. Goes into a centralized. Call. Center which, is managed, by Erin Williams from. The mayor's office, who, has been the, executive sponsor, where we have been the technical sponsors. For that that project and what, we've accomplished, as far as we've implemented, a system based on Salesforce that when somebody calls that number goes to Nashville gov. And. Fills, in a form those. Those. Requests, are brought into a central, system which. Are then dispersed. To departments, an agency without the requester, having to know who to go to they. Are able. To the requesters, were able to track those, online. Those, requests, the status, of those requests, and should they give their name and information they, receive, a response, back. When, that request has been completed it, does a number of things for us it allows a level, of of, transparency.
That Previously, was. Very difficult to achieve with a, lot of these types of requests, it, provides, accountability for, departments, because there. Are reports, that are generated that, are monitored. By Aaron, and departments, and agencies - about the status, of the, requests, that come in and, it also lets. Departments. Trumpet, the the accomplishments. And one of the things that I recently was. Have been very impressed with and I think has gotten some media attention is. The, volume. Of potholes, that have been filled this year, facilitated. In part through the hub but through the great work of, Public, Works and what. Has never been told without, some obvious, information, that came from. The, hub and hub reports, is how well Public. Works actually, responds to those things so, it gives the public the ability, and it gives people like Mark Stewart event our public works director the ability to come in and say look this this, pot work filling program, is working the way it's supposed to, we're, also really proud that, from. The, get-go, we. Have been, very. Important, about including, Department. Of. Constituencies. That may have been underserved in past so the hub is. Fully. In English and fully, in native, Spanish there, are Spanish, speakers at, the hub. Call center so we're. Also planning on reaching out to a couple of other additional. Language. In the near future so currently. We have the. Major department. That is integrated, directly with, their workflow, systems, is public works but in, phase two which is due, to be. Fully implemented. This summer we, will be bringing in the codes department and, stormwater as well with systems that are integrated. The. Other thing that we're really excited about is that we will also have our first, hub. Nashville, full. Mobile. App on Android. And iPhone, that we expect. To have out in time for the state of Metro address because we really want you to would, really like for you to give some prominence, to that good, service good new service for our our. Citizens. Open. Data asking. A question job Robin. Has done a really really, great, job working. With the data coordinators, in the various departments it's, kind of developing. That culture for understanding, how to use data, better to improve. The way we deliver services. And. Other. Other functions how how would you evaluate sort, of where we are with open data and you know what where. Might the priority, be next year sure I appreciate that question to Brian I think we've got a when.
Looking At kind, of peer cities around the. Country I think we have a very, progressive, system. And let me just step back a little bit and make sure the. Mayor has a good understanding of what open data is and what open data isn't it's been a commitment, to. By. Our previous, two mayor's since, Karl Dean signed our first executive order five years ago now and it's, important, to note, open. Data is not, just. Emails, and, documents, it's. Not working, product it's, not sensitive, information it's not proprietary, information rather. Open, data is, data that is freely shareable, typically. In a structured, or tabular form and. Many times the results, of interactions. Or measurements, and a great example is think, of a spreadsheet, that that's. Detailing. All the calls that have come in to huh kind, of categorized, by the type of call the status, and the, description. So, what you understand, that, opendata. Also. Does a couple of things very specifically, per the executive, order it it fosters. Transparency. And trust with the public is that you're putting these data out there you're you're opening. The kimono as it were to what what bar the property, violations, that are existing what, hub Nashville, requests, have been made and how how, quickly. Are we responding, to them and, as a side effect it, cuts. Down on, public. Records requests, and the, best example is, our, most viewed. Open. Dataset which is the. Metro. Salaries. Listing. Salaries, and positions, which in the past The Tennessean has. Published, that for years through public records requests well now they don't need to bother anymore because it's on national gov, it. Encourages. Neighborhood, engagement because, they have the data and as well as encourages, investment by, the community, in the use of that data for, commercial, activities we, do a lot of work with vanderbilt we have an agreement, around smart. City technologies, with Vanderbilt, University, in Tennessee state they, use that open data as well as some of our partners that, Robin. Works with the, Code for Nashville, group. In. The in the coming year where we see this moving is, is as, Robin calls it the data chaise working. Closely with departments. And agencies on, data, sets that are a priority. A, couple, of ones that she's gotten recently which are big our, restaurant. Scores, which, they're actually national standards. On how to publish restaurant, scores as. Well as air quality indices. Both of those came from the Health Department she's. Also working with the police department has. Recently worked, up incident, data and. Is is closing, in on kind of calls data, as well so the public has a better picture of what, what. That. Underlying, data is that, they can then take and map and do analyses, on, I, don't think there she. Also is gonna be working very closely with that group, of data. Coordinators. Throughout departments. And agencies that she meets with on a monthly basis, to kind of make sure they, understand. The data that's available one. Of the other items that is one of the priorities, of the. Open Data executive, order is the, reuse of data prior. To open data we had examples, where one department, was buying, data sets from, entities. That, it turns out were, being provided to that entity by another Metro department, so having, that data, reduces. That redundancy. Of having. To find data. It's. It's not the greatest time we try to implement a strategy that you've worked with a lot of stakeholders on in a status quo budget, here but, given that connected, Nashville is there any I'm. Just gonna look out over the next six twelve months is there any kind of low-hanging fruit that might be easier to implement, to show some progress on on, that, versus. The other items that might be sort of bigger ticket investments. Sure, no absolutely, so so one of the good things is there were a number. Of the strategies, and, the. Actual strategic, items and connect to Nashville, that we're actually making, progress, on now a prominent. Example may. First the transit referendum, there. Are a lot of items, that we are predicting, will happen, should. We move forward with transit, to make sure that the technology associated, with that transit, is gives us the best possible system, we have otherwise. There, are there, is work that we are currently doing around. Continuing. As Margaret, mentioned our. Fiber Network which is kind of the core for. All of that we're also working a lot of the work Robin is doing around data and a data infrastructure.
One. Of the things major projects. That like, some. Of the work that MTA. Is doing, even. With the open payment system results in tremendous amount, of data likewise, for, the new traffic controllers, that, Public. Works has put in tremendous, amounts, of data so. We are working Robin, is working with a number of shareholders, including, Vanderbilt. A. Proof-of-concept. As, it were a low-cost, kind, of high, tolerance, for failure system. By which we can get our feet with understanding. How to ingest, lots, of data and then. And then be able to use that data for decision-making. We. Absolutely. And we also have a couple of projects, we just with, Vanderbilt. Applied. For, a National, Science Foundation grant, that's going to take and. Using. Some of that data and potentially, should we get that grant help pay for some, of that that data capacity, as, well. So. The, that. The increases. This year the to contractual. Increases, I noticed, that the software increase, is much greater than the hardware increase, so. Is there some sense that as we move to more a cloud-based, environment, that, software, will be our. Bigger increases. Versus hardware or is it is it we do we know that so, it's a great. Question. Because. One of the things that's happened, is as, as. Organizations. Move to cloud services. You. Are taking, things that potentially could, have been a capital, expense. And squarely, moving, them into the operating, side, some. Of that is what we're seeing here. Because. Again the r12 system some of that is hosted, likewise. The aforementioned you, know move to office 365, changes. That model as well so, it is a very different approach. And, over, time you will see a larger, part of that, those. Services move. Into. The operating and, four percent can be used for the. The. Operating, all. Right I mean technically typically, right. So. One, of the things though that I do think you, know. One. Thanks. Well, why do we need data centers well there will always be systems. And services that we will host in-house, there will always be things that we will do in-house.
And. So while, yes. You, will see those operating, costs arrived there will always be, services. That we and others. Will be providing, ourselves. Thank. You very much mr. Darwin and. Look. Forward to a good year. Thank. You all very much thank you.
2018-03-22 07:41