IT Management Issues in Digital Government

Abstract

A common thread among municipal governments is that they harbor a variety of enterprises under one roof. For example, police, fire, public works, social services, assessor, recorder, health services, human resources, and so forth. may all be constituent parts. They all provide services to the public, and many of these services are rapidly acquiring an online orientation (i.e., they are becoming e-services). Since they are all part of a single governmental entity, there is a need to review these online offerings to assure that the level of service provided is satisfactory and that there is a common look reflective of the parent political entity. This is discussed in the section titled “E-Government Services Review”. The common look or adherence to standards on Web sites can be facilitated by having appropriate IT governance for the disparate departments in the form of a chief information officer (CIO) who represents the interests of the parent political entity on an overall basis. One mechanism the CIO can use to invoke an IT vision for the County is to develop a strategic IT plan that the operating departments can then use as a guideline to plan their IT actions. This is discussed in the section of the article titled IT Governance and Strategic Planning. In the development of e-government services, as well as other systems projects, care needs to be taken regarding a number of important factors in order to assure that development work is done within time, cost, and quality constraints. This is discussed in the section of the article titled “System Development Guidelines”. Los Angeles County has an annual budget of close to $17 billion, encompasses about 30 major operating departments, and expends more than $700 million each year on information technology operations. Providing review and counsel to this effort is a 10-member Information Systems Commission, of which the author has been Chairman for the past 10 years. The Commission has concerned itself with such topics as e-government services, IT governance and strategic planning, and systems development. This article presents managerial insights drawn from this experience that should be applicable to large public agencies across the country.