The driving passion of my work in the Legislature is a belief that we need courageous honesty in our policies, our politics and our approach to transparency in state government. And we desperately need bold systems thinking.

You can argue whether my recent friendly elbow at the state Department of Labor & Industries for seeking and receiving an OFM exemption for $1.8 million to ‘lease’ 773 laptops fit any of those criteria.

I admit that my post last week came across as tongue and cheek with a bit of a flippant attitude. Microsoft, a company that I firmly support as a vital part of our state economy and that has backed me politically in the past, made a vigorous case and firm defense to me that I appeared to criticize their company for inadvertently implying that they were essentially price gauging the public. I don’t have a similarly close relationship with Texas-based Dell or I suspect they would have called me out directly for the same criticism. That certainly wasn’t my intent and I graciously accept and genuinely appreciate the forceful pushback from both L&I and Microsoft.

One of the central reasons that I work so hard to make this blog meaningful is that the job of a citizen legislator is to push, prod and agitate for transparency and open access to a more public dialogue about state government. I hope that my blog posts play a small role in that important, larger work. State government is far too hidden from view in many cases and I think it’s important to question how the institutional infrastructure of government works. Or doesn’t.

So, upon reflection, what was my larger goal in last week’s post? To make the case that we need a radical shift in thinking about how we provide technology to our 100,000 state employees and the citizens we serve. While it may not have appeared so, my thinking in the original pst was less about one purchase and more about how our state agencies relate to the state Department of Information Services, whether the Information Services Board oversees technology strategy and spending or is at great risk of being a rubber stamp, and how we can prod agencies to spend less on technology while receiving better services.

And my biggest point of all: The State of Washington is being crushed in costs because of the lack of a real, truly coordinated, comprehensive technology plan. We have a lot of reports, studies, commissions and task force reports–and many consultant assessments–but we have nothing that could be seriously considered a real technology plan.

And for what it’s worth, I didn’t run for office to be the IT guy (I’m not even an engineer!). l ran for office to send foster youth to college and to try and open the door of access to opportunity to education for everyone. That’s made harder when we spend $2 billion a biennium on technology with no statewide oversight, management or meaningful enterprise-wide accountability.

In that deeper spirit, I asked L&I for a specific response with sufficient detail to educate me and others about what they were really up to.

Here is their thoughtful and much appreciated response that shows L&I’s conviction on the issue.

(Beginning of L&I email response)

Hello Representative Carlyle,

Thank you for taking the time to discuss our computer needs for L&I field staff with our CIO, Christy Ridout, and me. I appreciate your invitation to provide feedback on statements made in your blog. Since there were many complicated topics covered in your blog, I thought it would be helpful to call out the key points being made and respond to each.

· ‘Browser-based device’, e.g. iPad, with the right ‘light’ back end applications could provide more long-term functionality…

o L&I shares a similar vision, however, the technology, infrastructure, and applications are not in place to execute the vision today. L&I continues to work toward that goal and has been actively migrating outdated, legacy applications to more modern service-oriented systems that can be accessed via Web browsers. This work continues as funding is made available, but it will be years before the vision is fully realized.

o L&I has tested several different computing devices for our inspectors, auditors, and other mobile workers, e.g. tablet PCs, netbooks, and personal digital assistants (PDAs). None of these alternative devices met the business needs of our users or the technical requirements for secure, manageable, enterprise-class computing. Today, only a proven, full-featured laptop PC can meet the business, security, technical, and ergonomic requirements needed to efficiently conduct agency business.

· “Client side” solutions don’t necessarily meet user needs.

o L&I agrees with this statement 100%. However, it is equally true that Web-based solutions do not necessarily meet all user needs. Business, technology, and security requirements demand that we support both types of applications for at least the useful lifetime of these laptop computers.

· The agency should be considering building the technology on the back end servers so users don’t need full laptops.

o This is the strategy that L&I is currently pursuing. It is called the “Phased Replacement of Legacy Systems (PRLS)”. This is a multi-biennial plan to replace outdated applications (some more than 25 yrs old) with modern service-oriented systems. We are incrementally working towards these goals as the legislature approves funding. Unfortunately, work has progressed slower than desired because of equipment, contracting, and hiring freezes. In addition, we halted all efforts to build out the necessary server infrastructure based on plans for state-wide IT consolidation and shared services.

· For less cost you could arguably purchase wireless connectivity so that your mobile workforce could secure access to the back end information while in the field.

o For reasons noted above, this approach does not meet the business or technical needs of the agency. However, a quick cost estimate was completed. The resulting figure exceeds the total cost of ownership for the leased laptops L&I plans to obtain.
773 iPads = $386,500.00

25% breakage rate = $96,625.00

3G data service for 4 yrs life of device = $927,600.00

Installation and configuration = $193,250.00

TOTAL to deploy iPads = $2.98 Million (does not include cost of rebuilding all applications, email gateways, security mitigation, etc.)

· It [wireless] might not work in every single corner of the state 100% of the time, but it would in a vast majority of areas at a considerable cost savings.
o Wireless phone coverage is fairly good in the state, but 3G data service is far more limited. Field inspectors routinely go to areas outside of wireless coverage areas. Quite often they cannot get service on the I-5 corridor once they enter a building, factory, construction site, etc.

· Lack of creativity and innovation in the use of technology that should have been more boldly examined and debated inside and outside their agency.

o L&I has already updated several applications to Web-based systems and hosts others on remote access servers. Many of our field staff regularly use 3G wireless to access these applications when service is available. Those workers that cannot tolerate communication outages have mobile versions of the applications that are designed to cache data and synchronize with the servers once they enter a wireless coverage area. But to accomplish this, a full featured laptop computer is required. Limited function devices, like Netbooks and iPads, do not work in these situations. These systems are quite innovative, highly secure, and deliver efficient, uninterrupted productivity.

· Appears to have paid too much ($2,328 /laptop) – “…received literally and figuratively no discount whatsoever”.

o The laptops have not been purchased. The exemption from the freeze is the first step in a long process of review and approval. L&I leases equipment through the DIS lease program. Once all approvals are received and we are ready to move forward, DIS will negotiate with the vendor community to receive the best price possible.

o The dollar amount being quoted is an estimate that covers the four year life of the equipment.
o The laptops are commercial grade as they are used primarily in the field.

· Purchased a “boat load” of Microsoft software that may not be needed and is, “clearly at odds with a long term technology strategy”.

o The laptops will have the Microsoft software installed that the staff need to do their jobs. This software is licensed through an enterprise agreement negotiated by the Department of Information Services.

o The long term strategy will not be realized within the operational lifetime of these laptops. Therefore, the agency’s standard office productivity software is still required on each computer.

Carole J. Washburn
Deputy Director for Operations
Department of Labor and Industries

(End of L&I email)

I deeply appreciate Carole’s direct pushback and forceful defense of L&I’s approach. We can agree or (continue to) disagree on one or more points, and I maintain without reservation that we need a stronger push toward using technology more effectively and in a much more coordinated fashion across state government. Yet, more than anything, I love seeing such convincing evidence that state agencies are pushing hard to think about how they use technology–and how they spend taxpayer money.

As always, your thoughts and comments are more than welcome as well.

Your partner in service,

Reuven.