Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 33
Thank you very much item, and I meant to call this up after 32, 33, receive briefing on information technology assessment and chief information officer transition.
>> good morning, cyd grimes.
I was trying to get my thoughts together and I asked joe, I said when did you inform the Commissioners court that you wanted to retire and he reminded me that was in February of this year.
so mr. Harlow gave us his notice and the court decided it might be a good time for us to look at a -- doing an assessment of our i.t.s.
department with mr. Harlow leaving.
and so they tasked a group of us to come up with a plan.
and two of the Commissioners, Commissioner Huber and Commissioner Eckhardt, was on a subcommittee and worked with us, a group of us, I can't remember all of us, danny, joe, roger, several other people, susan for a while.
so anyway, we've been working.
we also had an external i.t.s.
advisory board formed and that included denny hamill, thomas sparks, adam hamilton, dustin hazelr and keith high degrees night.
we have been engaged in conversation.
then they helped us look for a person possible the change agent.
we interviewed two individuals.
one of them was tied to a firm.
and then we kind of thought that perhaps it would be better if we hired the entire firm.
what we have done now and it's out to streets, we've issued a request for services to include someone to come in and be a change manager, do a high level assessment of i.t.s.
to see what sort of changes might need to be made, help us to look for and hire a new chief information officer and help, you know, let joe help transition that new person.
we estimate, and this is just a guesstimate, that it's going to take us, this will be about a 12 to 18-month engagement for this firm.
part of the proposal is for them to submit their work plan and what they think so those numbers might change.
we are hoping that we can get someone on board and start after the first of the year.
we have so many projects going on there are just -- and the holidays are starting to come up.
but we think this is a big, a big need and a big project for us.
we are getting so large, we are like a large corporation.
we have multiple complex divisions with huge i.t.s.
challenges.
you've heard some of them today.
more and more of our facilities are i.t.s.
related and we would also like to have back a i.t.s.
procurement governance committee to help guide is that we all in our system so we don't have multiple systems, multiple data sites.
so I mean it's really is a huge undertaking and we think that this process will help us.
so we had the pre-proposal conditions.
we actually had 21 firms attend, 16 in person and five via teleconference.
that's sort of a update.
you know, we just had so many projects going on it's been hard to push them all so I feel the need to apologize but not really so anyway, we're trying.
and mr. Harlow is here.
>> I think we've got to a point now with the vendor selection processes well underway so we should be able to pick a vendor by the first of the year.
>> and who will be -- how will that process go with regard to selecting the final team?
>> well, we have -- there will be a small group of folks and then we'll bring the contract back to the Commissioners court.
hopefully before the first of the year.
>> I think that ought to include the subcommittee from the court.
members of the outside advisory and the internal group.
it needs to be a countywide, you know, everybody needs to feel like they are part of the process to be successful listen implementing when it's over.
>> I just clarify the evaluation committee needs to be very small and I don't recommend Commissioners on there because you are actually the group that comes and approves that contract.
I always see that as a conflict.
but once we have a contract in place, absolutely, part of the scope of work is for them to meet with folks like dana and elected officials to do assessment of what they see as their needs.
just sort of independent review.
very big process once we -- that's why we think it will take 12 to 18 months to do this.
>> perhaps we could have an update from purchasing with regard to the composition of the evaluation committee as well as the scoring criteria.
>> okay.
and I don't vent tour guess whether the Commissioners court wants to see the two top -- the two finalists or whether we just want to leave it to the evaluation committee to select and negotiate.
>> that's y'all's preference.
>> I guess I would like to see who is on the committee before I commit.
>> okay.
>> miss dana debouvier.
>> thank you, judge.
I just wanted to ask a couple of questions or hear comment from the court about how you propose to include the -- the elected officials, the other office holders in the process of selecting and creating this -- this new i.t.s.
operation.
a corporate structure is really very unlike county government.
county government is decentralized.
comp rate structures are not -- corporate structures are not.
and folks who work in corporate structure probably don't have a clue about how complicated the structure of county government is and that decentralization has its place and deserves our respect.
judge dietz and I were talking about this the other day, about when and how the offices of the independently elected officials are going to be included in the process of selecting a new i.t.s.
director and how that department is going to be developed so that it recognizes the -- the obligations of our independently elected officials to serve our citizens.
the reason we are independently elected is because our citizens should be able to come directly to us for services.
it is not a bad thing.
it's good for voters.
and so we don't want to see some of the issues that have been caused in the past by not recognizing that direct service.
what we would like to see is the new i.t.s.
department be able to directly serve -- that its call to service is directly to the voters through its elected officials, all of its elected officials, not just the ones that sit on the dais.
and so for a department to tell an elected official no, you can't have something, we hope will never happen again.
and so we are very, very interested in how the court is going to structure this, address this kind of issue in the future and we have not heard yet any comments about how independently elected officials were going to be included in this process.
>> that has been a problem, too, dana.
I'm glad you brought that point up.
I haven't said on this anything, per se, but I think the structure and the integrity of the structure as we go forward I think is very, very paramount, in my opinion.
and it has been a void in the past of independent elected officials having a say into the process even though they have to provide service to the citizens just as anyone else does that's an elected official.
now, how that can be utilized in this process to make sure that there is input from the independent elected officials to make sure that who ever is the director, whoever will be in the future meet the needs of independent elected officials, just not something that's swept under the rug.
so I hear what you are saying and I'm going to wait and see how this thing is structured before I say anything else, but I think it's very important that the rubber meets the road in all of these different circumstances.
thank you.
>> are you suggesting you get with the -- some of the impacted elected officials and come up with a one-pager describing how y'all would like to participate?
because if so, I would certainly welcome it.
>> thank you.
>> and we need an appropriate agenda item to do that also.
>> so the court really hasn't considered yet how you would like to see that meshed into this process?
is that where we are in this?
>> I'm sure each of us has a whole lot of ideas, I do, however I have not discussed it with any elected official.
that will give us an opportunity to review it, reflect on it and take action.
I knew a subcommittee of the court was working with external and internal committee of persons on this issue, but I really did not know what work was being done in the county's short briefing today.
Commissioner Huber.
>> I was going to say my expectations have been that with this change agent and with this assessment that that is where this representation would be addressed.
because we know that that's a problem out there and that's the whole purpose of doing this -- going through this process.
timely.
>> I think we ought to approve that if that is so.
the other thing that I think we should give some thought to when the court as a whole gets involved.
I don't know that I have any interest in choosing the change agent, but I would think that thereafter if we're talking about the future of the i.t.
department, then Commissioners court rather than waiting until the end to bless it, we ought to be involved along the way.
but I think we would welcome whatever input you got and if you want to touch base with other elected officials fine.
if you want us to do that, I don't have any problem trying to make that happen also.
>> thank you for the opportunity.
>> okay.
without telling us the amount, did we budget an amount for the change agent?
>> we budget I believe 200,000 --
>> don't tell me the amount.
but that's in your budget.
>> I believe --
>> if it's in my budget, it's safe.
>> I'm not sure where p.b.o.
put it for sure.
>> okay.
Commissioner Eckhardt.
>> there is one existing document that it would be -- that we had actually discussed before dana, the scope on this change manager.
that was one conduit for input.
but I do imagine that the evaluation criteria is coming back to Commissioners court will be another place for independently elected officials to weigh in on what criteria that -- that we all believe should be considered.
and again, this is just the change manager to transition from joe retiring into hiring a new i.t.
executive.
so this is a bridging individual.
and the more input and involvement we can get from the independently elected officials with regard to how -- the change manager is to assess our current practices and the change portion of it is the change from joe to a new person.
not a massive reorganization.
the change manager is to assess what we currently do and provide us options with what we could do moving forward in anticipation of a new executive director.
so early involvement is -- would make all the difference in the world.
>> has the Commissioners court blessed a change manager description or scope of work?
>> you approved the new job description for the chief information officer several months ago.
diane blankenship worked on that with y'all and that position now reports to the Commissioners court.
>> have we done a job description scope of work for the change manager?
>> that's part of the rfs document.
it has the scope of work that we would --
>> has Commissioners court seen it?
>> I don't believe so.
>> it didn't come to Commissioners court.
>> I they we ought to see it.
I would love to see it.
>> it's out on the street.
it's out there.
so it opens on the 29th so I need to get it to y'all and y'all make comments back next Tuesday, and I'm not going to be here, in case y'all want to make any changes, we need to amendment the documents out on the street.
once get backup get the proposal -- I don't know that I want to amend it, I want to see it.
if somebody will email that to me today or tomorrow I'm happy for the time being.
>> but as we're negotiating the contract, that is a time where if there's something we forgot or something we want to add that we do, but I need to know that pretty quick.
so I'll get you the scope of work emailed to y'all today.
>> that would be great.
>> and the other thing that we're going to need to decide on and we don't know yet is we need to identify a project manager within the county to work with this person.
that's something else we've been thinking about.
>> move that we recess to 1:30.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
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