Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Just What Is VITA’s Purpose?

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by

James A. Bacon
in

In this week’s column, “Re-VITA-lyzing Government,” Doug Koelemay makes the argument that VITA is living up to its goals of transforming the delivery of information-technology services to state agencies, providing better citizen service, new economic development opportunities and more cost savings for localities. Wrote Koelemay: “VITA was never to be about saving money by spending less. It has been about improving service delivery and avoiding wasteful, redundant spending.”

One reader responds, “Koelemay’s column is a spoof, right? ‘VITA was never to be about saving money by spending less. It has been about improving service delivery and avoiding wasteful, redundant spending.’ Migawd. And I’d thought the original sales pitch for VITA was in large part to lower costs.

see, e.g., § 2.2-2023. “Virginia Technology Infrastructure Fund created; contributions. … B. The Fund shall consist of: (i) the transfer of general and nongeneral fund appropriations from state agencies which represent savings that accrue from reductions in the cost of information technology and communication services, (ii) the transfer of general and nongeneral fund appropriations from state agencies which represent savings from the implementation of information technology enterprise projects. … The Auditor of Public Accounts shall certify the amount of any savings identified by the CIO. …

Is VITA delivering value, as Koelemay says, or is it falling short of its stated aims, as our anonymous correspondent, a local planning official, suggests?

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Comments

  1. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    I think what they’re saying is that these investments in IT would be needed whether they brought VITA in or not. We needed a security upgrade. We needed new infrastructure.

    Doing it all under the VITA umbrella costs less than letting 80+ different IT shops try to upgrade security and infrastructure. That’s cost savings. Even though the overall cost of IT is more, that was going to happen anyway.

  2. Terry M. Avatar
    Terry M.

    Actually, in the materials provided to the Council on Virginia’s Future for their May 12 meeting, I believe VITA claimed $22M in cost savings/cost avoidance.

    Further, the PPEA effort, if adopted is also supposed to save money. When I asked how that was possible, I was told that the private entity, perhaps IBM, would be able to leverage their buying power to get better prices on equipment than the state could since they buy so much more.

  3. criticallythinking Avatar
    criticallythinking

    I always am wary when an organization spends more money, but says that they saved us from spending even MORE money.

    Imagine a group that gets awards every month for cost savings, but spends more each month. The savings are off projections the group makes, and the group is rewarded for savings.

    Can you trust that the group will accurately estimate what the cost of services would have been if they hadn’t been smart enough to spend less?

    If I buy a 50-inch TV from a returned as-is sale, have I saved $1000? Or since I could watch TV before, have I just paid $2000 more for a simple upgrade?

    The only way to have any chance of categorizing cost savings is in an environment where there is a real competition so you know the cost projections are someone’s idea of reality.

    Charles R.

  4. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Sure like one saving IT has brought us is the ability to have ten revisions of a memo instead of two. Having spent much of my career fixing IT problems, or more accurately creating work arounds, I’m not convinced that all of the benefits claimed are real.

    Some people can do a lot more that previously possible and that may tip the scale itself, but we need to be realistic about the benefits we get.

    Paul is right, IT spending would have increased anyway, and probably more if 80+ shops had to duplicate each others efforts. But the 80 shops represented a kind of competition or co-operation: they could share successes and failures until a common best solution evolves. It’s also possible that VITA’s one size fits all is a very bad fit for some shops. But if VITA turns out to be the one of 80 that has a failure, it will be a much bigger failure than one of 80.

    I believe Criticallythinking, is correct: we have no independent way of measuring success, and that is pretty sure to be a problem.

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