It is all change again when it comes to the management of IT and IT projects within one US state government.
According to this report, the state of Florida is preparing to do without a standalone agency that deals with technology, with the eventual demise of the Agency for Enterprise Information Technology (AEIT), a 16-person unit that helped set standards for technology purchasing and information security under the supervision of Florida’s governor and cabinet.
The Florida Legislature has passeda bill, HB 5011, which would have replaced AEIT with an Office of State Technology (though quite how that would differ is unclear). The Florida Governor, Rick Scott, vetoed the bill, and although the agency still exists, it will have no funding when the new fiscal year starts in July.
Many of its employees, including former state Chief Information Officer David Taylor, have already begun moving to other agencies, the report says.
As usual, the state of IT projects has come under fire with one politician, Denise Grimsley, arguing that studying some of the state’s technology initiatives – including an attempt to switch most of state government to a single e-mail system – led her to conclude that AEIT “in its current state was ill-suited to provide the statewide vision and oversight needed for certain enterprise information technology projects.”
Plus ca change.
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