By Elizabeth Daigneu
From Governing.com
CHICAGO — Rather than engage in endless budget-cutting, government information technology departments need to invest in better technology to ultimately save money for the taxpayers, panelists told attendees at the opening session of Governing’s Managing Technology 2005 conference today.
Technology departments must invest in infrastructure and security to help deliver the services promised to citizens, Teri Takai, Michigan’s CIO and director of the state’s Department of Information Technology, said in a presentation on “Making Good on the Promise of IT.”
The key to reducing overall costs, Takai said, is in cutting the amount spent on that technology, who said that through consolidating IT services, standardizing software and management practices, and requiring contractors to reduce their compensation rates, her department is saving Michigan $1 million a week.
Named CIO two years ago at the midpoint of Michigan’s ambitious IT centralization initiative, Takai moved IT operations from 19 executive branch agencies into a central technology organization. She runs a statewide technology help desk, has consolidated mainframe and telecommunications operations, and is in the process of consolidating servers and e-mail systems.
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