Overview
EOTSS oversees the IT capital investment portfolio and related program management through its Office of Capital Planning. The EOTSS Secretary in collaboration with the IT Investment Advisory Board (IIAB), reviews and recommends projects to the Governor and the Secretary for Administration & Finance (A&F) for inclusion in the annual Capital Investment Plan (CIP).
As the stewards of IT capital investments, EOTSS and the IIAB have implemented an enterprise framework that promotes standardization and consistency across the Executive Branch. The framework drives overall IT investment strategy and works towards the long-term goals of modernizing legacy IT infrastructure, ensuring the continuity of government services, improving constituent-centric digital services, and enhancing the state’s cybersecurity posture.
Through this framework, EOTSS brings together leadership from both an agency’s business and IT organization to develop a mutual understanding of the business case for a project and to set expectations for the planning process and desired outcomes. These efforts promote communication and collaboration, help establish and manage priorities for the agencies and specific projects and reinforce the enterprise standard operating environment.
IT Capital Bond
The strong working relationship between the Baker-Polito Administration and the Legislature is evidenced by their ongoing commitment to improving government and making government work for the Commonwealth’s many residents, businesses, and visitors.
Their commitment was again reinforced through passage of a An Act Financing the General Governmental Infrastructure of the Commonwealth, which was signed by Governor Baker on August 7, 2020. The “General Government Bond” included more than $1.82 B in new capital bond authorizations for various capital planning agencies.
Among the $1.82 B was $660 M in new IT capital bond authorizations to be managed through EOTSS. These new authorizations provided much-needed fiscal relief as previous IT bond authorizations were slated to run out of available funding in FY21. The current IT capital plan is still funded through these authorizations. However, given the size and scope of the investments needed to fund enterprise modernization efforts and large-scale projects, it is anticipated that new authorizations will be needed in the near future.
As a result, the Baker-Polito Administration filed new General Government Bond legislation on January 14, 2022, to authorize new capital spending in the coming years and extend the duration of certain expiring authorizations from the 2020 law. This new bill proposes $185 M in new authorization for EOTSS to provide continued funding and support for cybersecurity, IT infrastructure, and application modernizations initiatives in FY24 and beyond.
This new bill proposes $185 million in new authorization for EOTSS to provide continued funding and support for cybersecurity, IT infrastructure, and application modernizations initiatives in FY24 and beyond.
IT Investment Advisory Board (IIAB)
The IT Investment Advisory Board (IIAB) advises the Commonwealth Chief Information Officer on prudent investments in the IT capital investment portfolio and related programs.
The IIAB is chaired by the EOTSS Secretary and brings together key executives from across the Commonwealth who have experience in information technology investment portfolio management, in approving and overseeing capital projects, and in resolving high-level business issues as they arise.
The Board’s composition is not necessarily representative of specific agencies interests per se, and members do not represent the specific interests of their respective organizations. Rather, members address the general interests of the Commonwealth with respect to the investment of taxpayer dollars in technology projects that improve the delivery of government services.
The IIAB meets at least monthly at the direction of the Secretary to review new project business cases, to consider emergency and contingency funding requests, and to review the progress of ongoing IT capital projects. The Board also advises the Secretary on the policies and standards for the overall IT capital planning process.
IT Capital Planning Process
The EOTSS Office of Capital Planning kicks off its annual capital planning process in November with the issuance of new guidance for the coming fiscal year. Ongoing project funding requests are then due in early December, while requests for new projects must be submitted mid-month.
Through a series of collaborative planning meetings and presentations before the IIAB, the EOTSS Secretary and IIAB work within A&F guidelines to submit their recommended projects to the Governor for inclusion in the annual CIP.
Agency funding requests typically exceed available bond cap authorization for a given fiscal year, so difficult decisions must be made. Programs and projects are prioritized in line with new statutory and regulatory requirements, the Administration’s priorities, the EOTSS statewide IT roadmap, and SCIO IT strategic plans.
As part of the IT Capital Planning Process, all on-going and newly proposed projects are also rated by the IIAB against the principles listed below. The principles work largely in order (e.g. First, demonstrate a project serves a constituent need, then show how technology is leveraged and finally, demonstrate a high probability of success). However, there are some cases where this hierarchy may not strictly apply.
Read more information on the policies, standards, & guidance for the IT capital planning process, the IIAB business-case standard, and the IT project lifecycle.
Capital Portfolio Management
In addition to preparing the annual IT capital plan recommendations to A&F and the Governor, the EOTSS Office of Capital Planning also actively manages the IT capital project portfolio throughout the project lifecycle to ensure successful project outcomes in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
EOTSS achieves these goals through regular reporting requirements and collaborative stakeholder engagement in line with industry best practices.
For example, monthly Performance Metrics Reports are required for all active IT capital projects, and the IIAB typically requests specific project presentations from agencies at its monthly meetings. Additionally, the EOTSS team schedules quarterly deep dives with Secretariat business owners and SCIOs and liaises regularly with Program/Project owners and the A&F Capital Office.
Moving forward, the team is also designing a program of project ‘health checks’ (on critical projects) by an independent third party.
The EOTSS collaborative approach to portfolio management and project monitoring is critical for ensuring projects are delivered on-time and within their allotted budgets.
The EOTSS collaborative approach to portfolio management and project monitoring is critical for ensuring projects are delivered on-time and within their allotted budgets. The regular reporting and check-in schedule helps identify and mitigate risks early on, creates consensus around the achievement of project milestones and determines that agencies have a sound project delivery strategy all the way through to completion and implementation.
FY22 Capital Investment Plan & IT Capital Investment Portfolio
On June 14, 2021, the Baker-Polito Administration released its Capital Investment Plan, providing for the Commonwealth’s capital needs in Fiscal Year 2022.
The IT Capital Plan builds upon the Administration’s prior accomplishments, while also establishing new IT and cybersecurity capital priorities and advancing IT and cybersecurity policy objectives. It prioritizes the Commonwealth’s continuing transformation to a standardized, resilient, and secure technology foundation and framework that supports the delivery of government services to our residents, businesses, and visitors. This plan also provides for key investments in agency business applications across the Executive Branch, several constitutional offices, and independent agencies.
Highlights from the IT capital plan include:
Business Applications Development ($64.9 million): EOTSS continues to lead and oversee ongoing IT transformation initiatives across the Commonwealth with a focus on supporting agency efforts to improve the experience of constituents accessing government services. In FY22, priorities include but are not limited to: the replacement of the Commonwealth’s Unemployment Insurance online claims system; the modernization of the Department of Public Health’s Vital Records system; and the build-out of the Executive Office of Education’s data reporting and analytics platform.
IT Technical Infrastructure Modernization ($42.1 million): EOTSS continues to make investments to digital infrastructure, networks, and hosting services to enhance the resiliency of the Commonwealth’s information systems and business applications, ensuring the uninterrupted delivery of government services to constituents and stakeholders, while also extending the technology foundation to support workforce mobility.
Cybersecurity Program ($15.5 million): Cybersecurity is a top priority for the Commonwealth and has become increasingly more prominent for state and local governments across the country with the rapid shift to remote work. EOTSS continues to strengthen the Commonwealth’s cybersecurity capabilities across the Executive Branch secretariats and agencies, as well as independents, constitutionals, and other entities by establishing standards, processes, and systems to best protect constituent data and Commonwealth business applications. This program includes the continued buildout of the Commonwealth Security Operations Center and the implementation of security technologies and programs such as vulnerability management, security awareness and incident analysis.
Operational Efficiencies ($7.1 million): EOTSS continues to aggressively seek out innovative technology solutions that improve operational efficiency in state government. In FY22, several initiatives will develop streamlined capabilities in the areas of electronic health records within the Health and Human Services secretariat, Massachusetts Environmental Police workforce management, and statewide case management systems.
While several ongoing programs mentioned above will continue into FY23, the chart below highlights 6 significant programs and projects that will wrap in FY22.
| Agency | Program | Objective & Outcomes | Project began | Investment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EOTSS | Workforce Mobility Program | A transformational program that revitalizes the Commonwealth's workforce by enabling the workforce to easily access and edit documents securely from any device to meet the needs of the citizens, supports collaboration and workflow efficiency by digitizing manual processes, and further strengthens our cybersecurity posture and protects citizen data. This was achieved by supporting remote work locations across the executive branch by implementing Office 365 and migrating email and file shares to a common cloud location and adding productivity tools for all, improving the desktop support service infrastructure and process, and standardizing the procurement of end user hardware. Almost 19,000 new workstations and laptops were deployed by this program. | FY19 | $53,000,000 (including professional services of $31.7M and device deployments of $21.3M |
| EOE | Modernization of Background Checks | This project replaced the Department of Early Education and Care's (EEC) legacy applications for performing background checks with a modern solution. The new system ensures the timely staffing of programs with qualified educators, improve constituent services, and improve business processes, data integrity, and security. In addition to closing out the background check work, this project connects directly to the integrated Digital Data Services (DDS) capital project at EOE and lays the foundation for future "person centric" work at EEC and across the Secretariat. | FY18 | $11,500,000 |
| EOEEA | Drinking & Waste Water Analysis | This project creates online documentation for laboratories to submit Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) data in drinking water and wastewater. The development covers collecting data, providing a quality control filter on collected data, and a reporting tool that is accessible by the public. | FY21 | $750,000 |
| EOTSS | Elevation Mapping for Central and Eastern MA | MassGIS (Bureau of Geographic Information) is participating in a United States Geological Survey (USGS) Project to perform detailed elevation mapping in Central and Eastern MA over two fiscal years. Funding is matched by federal USGS grant awards for the acquisition of detailed elevation mapping in Central and Eastern MA, Funding partners (MassDOT, EOEEA, CapeCod Commission) have committed 38% of state match. This project will complete the state's detailed elevation mapping. | FY21 | $1,000,000 |
| EOANF | Contract Lifecycle Management - OSD | The Operational Services Division (OSD) has developed a Strategic Sourcing Workload Application known also as Contract Lifecycle Management. This application enables OSD to see the status of contracts in development, pre-award, and post-award. It includes programmable flow charts that automatically alert other Units of due dates for specific tasks. In addition to Strategic Sourcing, other units within OSD that will benefit include: Marketing; Communications and Events; Training; and HR and Finance. | FY21 | $310,000 |
| EOHED | Digitize Real Estate Appraiser license | As a result of a regulatory requirement to create a Real Estate Appraiser license and integrated it into the EOHED on-line platform (ePlace) to avoid processing inefficiencies and reduce processing errors which impact customer service. | FY22 | $150,000 |
Annual IT Spending over $250,000
Pursuant to Chapter 222 of the Acts of 2020, EOTSS is required to provide a detailed account of all IT-related project expenditures (not only expenditures included in the annual Capital Investment Plan) totaling $250,000+ over the previous 12-month period:
“provided further, that not later than June 30, 2022, the secretary of technology services and security shall submit to the state auditor, the house and senate committees on ways and means and the joint committee on state administration and regulatory oversight a complete accounting of and justification for all project-related expenditures totaling $250,000 or more over the previous 12-month period, regardless of source of funds or authorization for such expenditure;”
A summary by secretariat can be found below. In FY21, there were 80 active IT projects across the Commonwealth, compared with 67 in the prior year. In total $359M was invested in IT projects in FY21, compared to an almost $220M invested in the same period last year. EOHHS and EOTSS remain the principal investors in IT, accounting for 69% of investments in FY21 compared with 64% in FY20.
| Investment Activity (projects >$250K) | ||||||
| FY 2021 | FY 2020 | |||||
| Executive Office | Number of projects |
Investment ($000s) |
% of total projects |
Number of projects |
Investment ($000s) |
% of total projects |
| HHS | 10 | $192,910 | 54% | 8 | $101,118 | 46% |
| TSS | 7 | $52,072 | 14% | 9 | $38,455 | 18% |
| LWD | 6 | $43,294 | 12% | 9 | $10,805 | 5% |
| PSS | 12 | $19,662 | 5% | 9 | $7,472 | 3% |
| DOT | 28 | $19,092 | 5% | 19 | $32,149 | 15% |
| EDU | 5 | $16,369 | 5% | 3 | $15,978 | 7% |
| ANF | 7 | $10,843 | 3% | 5 | $9,445 | 4% |
| EEA | 5 | $4,998 | 1% | 4 | $3,738 | 2% |
| HED | 0 | $0 | 0% | 1 | $430 | 0% |
| Total | 80 | $359,240 | 100% | 67 | $219,590 | 100% |
Please note: Due to the June 30th reporting deadline, amounts reported in the enclosed report are actuals through May 14,2021 and forecasts through June 30th – since final FY21 numbers are not reported until after the Accounts Payable period at the end of August.
Read the full report on EOTSS FY21 Investment activity (IT projects greater than $250,000.00).
A Note on Executive Order 569
In late 2016, Governor Baker signed Executive Order 569 - Establishing an Integrated Climate Change Strategy for the Commonwealth. The order instructed secretariats to develop a statewide Climate Adaptation Plan that incorporates observed and projected climate trends, along with guidance for state agencies to address impacts through adaptation and resiliency measures to ensure the sustainability of government operations and continuity of services.
As a result, EOTSS has incorporated climate change and resiliency planning into the IT capital planning framework. The Capital Investment Plan has seen a corresponding increase in investments in state-owned assets and projects that conserve energy, improve adaptive capacity, and promote the sustainability and continuity of government services. For example, critical systems have migrated to multiple 3rd party cloud hosts – offering scalability, recovery, and security benefits of multiple cloud environments. Cloud migration also offers sustainable, energy-efficient solutions utilizing more modern technologies and server platforms than state-owned data centers.
| Date published: | May 10, 2022 |
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| Last updated: | May 10, 2022 |