It comes from the House Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure, newly formed this session in part to prioritize digital technology initiatives that had been overshadowed.

By Charlotte Oliver, for the Community News Service

Considering the state spends over $140 million a year on government IT projects, lawmakers want more transparency on how those projects are going and how that money is spent.

A bill, H.458, would set new standards for the Agency of Digital Services, which manages information technology projects across state government. If signed into law, the bill would require the agency to share more info about its projects publicly. 

On its website, the agency would update whether each project is on track or on budget and detail the project in plain language. The agency would also be required to include all its projects, rather than some, in its yearly report to lawmakers.

The bill represents another state effort to invest in, and provide more oversight of, digital technology projects. It comes from the House Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure, newly formed this legislative session in part to prioritize digital technology initiatives that had been overshadowed by some of the year’s hot topics. 

“IT was getting lost in the shuffle,” said Rep. Kathleen James, D-Manchester, chair of the committee.

“That’s a really important area of oversight and involvement for the state legislature,” she said. 

The bill passed the House mid-April and is now being reviewed in the Senate. House members are pushing senators to consider an amendment that would commission a study to evaluate which state agencies currently sell Vermonters’ data. 

The aim of the bill and amendment is to better inform lawmakers and Vermonters, James said. And one of the main goals of the House committee is to provide better oversight of those projects. The bill will help lawmakers do that, James said. 

“If nobody’s looking over the shoulder of ADS or these state agencies as they embark on (multimillion-dollar) projects — then as legislators we’re not really doing our jobs,” James said. 

The agency currently has 80 projects underway and supports over 12,000 users, according to its online dashboard. If passed, the bill would require the agency to be more detailed on that dashboard. Lawmakers want the agency to detail each project it’s working on, including project budgets and end dates, and to update details as projects progress.. 

The agency agrees it’s important to give the public info about its work, said Denise Reilly-Hughes, the agency’s secretary and state chief information officer. Employees from the agency showed lawmakers in committee what the changes would look like in real time, making the collaborative process “meaningful for everybody,” Reilly-Hughes said.

Besides the website changes, the bill will also require the agency to disclose all of its projects to lawmakers in its yearly report. Under current law, the agency only has to report on projects that cost more than $500,000. 

Getting rid of that threshold is necessary for more thorough supervision, James said. 

If the bill is passed, the agency wants to make sure its public-facing info is easy for people to understand, Reilly-Hughes said. And while the agency is open to closer supervision, it has a very high rate of finishing projects on time compared to the private sector, she said. 

House members who worked on the bill proposed an amendment that would launch a study to find out which state agencies sell Vermonters’ data and how much money they make off that practice.

Lawmakers are interested in pushing state agencies to sell more data as a way to fund IT projects, James said. They want a study to better understand the state’s current practices, so they can think about future initiatives, she said. 

But agency officials take issue with the amendment. Currently, money made from selling data contributes practically nothing to the agency’s IT budget, Reilly-Hughes said. She also expressed ethical concerns with the idea of selling more data from Vermonters. 

“I think there’s a misunderstanding,” Reilly-Hughes said. 

She gave senators her take on the amendment on April 30. They will decide what happens next.

Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship