STATE BUDGET MATTERS
OKLAHOMA CITY – Several state agency executives – and several legislators who participate in writing the state budget – have registered their concern and displeasure about the soaring cost of computer and internet service provided by the state Office of Management and Enterprise Services.
The Oklahoma Department of Mines, for example, is paying OMES approximately $4,100 each month for IT [information technology] service, the agency director, Mary Ann Pritchard, recently told members of the state House and Senate appropriation committees. And that constituted an increase of $600 per month, she said.
Altogether, OMES charges the Department of Mines about $125,000 a year for computer hardware and software, desktop telephones and mobile phones, photocopiers, agency officials told the budget writers.
Terry Howard, deputy director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, told the legislators, “We spent $108,000 on two 100-terabyte data storage servers,” one of which was used as a backup unit. After six years and the consolidation of state IT services during the administration of Gov. Mary Fallin, OMES told the OHS its servers were at the end of their design life.
OMES was going to charge the Historical Society $300,000/year to store 100 terabytes of data, Howard said. “The only way to reduce that bill was to get a lot of our data off of those servers.”
So the OHS “archived a lot of data” at the University of Oklahoma, he said. The agency paid a one-time fee of $2,800 to store 70 terabytes on tape at OU, he said.
Now OMES “charges us $106,000 a year” for 30 terabytes of “working” storage – “one-third of the storage space we had before,” Howard said.
The Historical Society has requested $451,000 in FY 2022 to cover its IT expenses for Fiscal Year 2022, which starts July 1, newly appointed OHS Executive Director Trait Thompson said. Data storage is the biggest cost in the agency’s IT bill, Howard said. Application maintenance expense “went up, too.”
The Historical Society’s IT costs increased 71% over the last three years, Howard said.
State Sen. Dave Rader, R-Tulsa, said the trend over the past two decades has been a decline in the cost of digital storage space, but the Historical Society’s experience is the inverse.
Howard concurred, and related that the Historical Society pays Amazon 5¢ a gigabyte for data storage while OMES charges 25¢ per gigabyte. However, the Amazon storage is “archival” use and not “working” storage, Howard added.
OMES managed the payroll system for the state Insurance Department until its cost tripled from $1,000 to $3,000 per month, Insurance Commissioner Glen Mulready said. “So we made a decision to take that in-house and didn’t continue with OMES,” he said. “We have our own IT department.”
What the Oklahoma Conservation Commission is required to pay OMES for IT service is “about eight times what the commercial rate is,” OCC Executive Director Trey Lam told the budget writers. “When we’ve asked why, we’re told it’s all about cyber security.”
OMES charges the OCC 25¢ per gigabyte of data storage space, the legislators were told. A “large amount” of data storage is needed for the agency’s Office of Geographic Information and Technical Services, Lam said.
The Conservation Commission was forced to “migrate over” to Microsoft’s Office 365 product, Lam said. As a result, the agency is paying $15 per month for every employee’s email address; in exchange, the employee has access to a suite of software programs. Additionally, though, the Conservation Commission has to pay that same rate to provide email access for the 100+ employees of the 84 conservation districts throughout the state, Lam said, “even though they are independent units of government and not on the state system.”
“Three members of my staff spend half their time dealing with OMES issues, just trying to get through the labyrinth of the way they manage their business,” Lam said. “It’s extremely challenging.” Sometimes “it takes a stream of 25 emails over 30 days to get the ball rolling,” he said. “It’s not a good way to do business.”
“OMES, this has got to stop – sooner rather than later!” state Sen. Marty Quinn, R-Claremore, warned during the budget hearing.
Thompson, who directed the $280 million State Capitol restoration project for the past six years before his appointment as chief executive officer of the Historical Society, previously worked for OMES.
Unlike several other agency chiefs, he praised OMES. “There have been a lot of positives to the consolidation of IT,” Thompson said. Previously state agencies were “running their own systems” and consequently there were “various levels of security” in state government. “We needed some coherence.”
IT “will help us achieve our mission,” Thompson said. However, IT costs “are constantly rising” and the Legislature “needs to fund them,” he said. “If we’re not appropriated enough dollars to cover that, we have to decide whether to cut staff or reduce the number of historical sites to maintain.”