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The VITA Exodus Continues

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Dick Hall-Sizemore
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by Dick Hall-Sizemore

The fourth high-ranking executive at the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) has left since Governor Youngkin took office six months ago.

Those that have resigned include the chief information officer that Youngkin appointed to take the place of Nelson Moe, the agency head under previous administrations; the chief operating officer; the deputy chief operating officer; and the chief administrative officer, the latest to hand in his resignation.

Some of those leaving have taken positions with one of the major private IT vendors doing business with the Commonwealth.

This many high-ranking executives leaving a vital state agency over such a short period is highly unusual. It may be telling that it is at the start of a new administration. One can only speculate over the reason or reasons for these departures.

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15 responses to “The VITA Exodus Continues”

  1. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Youngkin needs to get his chief transformation officer on the job!

  2. Carter Melton Avatar
    Carter Melton

    When I was running the hospital, as the technology world around me was changing at warp speed, it became evident that we needed to hire more and more highly skilled, very expensive “new kinds of people”.

    Compensation was a real stumbling block until it dawned on me that we needed a new compensation model. What I ultimately decided on was the pro sports model where it was accepted that it was fine if the .450 franchise hitter made more than the general manager.

    I am not claiming cause-and-effect here, but it was after this shift that we were twice named the best free-standing community hospital in America.

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      Pay for performance is anathema in the public arena. With unions it will become even more impossible as leveling all at mediocrity is the exact goal. No incentive to become a high flyer.

      1. Carter Melton Avatar
        Carter Melton

        Which is exactly why, for 30 years, my one performance objective that never changed was “maintain a workplace and workforce level of satisfaction so that employees never want or need a union.”

        These city councils and county commissioners that are handing their employees over to a union are signing their own death warrants.

        “Stupid is as stupid does”. Forrest Gump.

  3. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    There’s a position now , called CIO. It’s as important, sometimes more important than the CEO and CFO because in this day and age – how information moves , how it is maintained, how it is secured is tantamount to just about any institution – govt or private.

    We’ve gone from a world where every state agency wanted to do it’s own “IT” to one where having State Policies must be defined and adhered to.

    One person in one office of a state agency can take down the entire state IT if it is not properly secured.

    We have issues and failures with VEC, VDH, DMV – over how “IT” … “works” or not.

    How “IT” .. “works” actually is how the business plan “works”.

    Carter Mellon talks about Hospitals. IT for Hospitals these days is a big deal and how a hospital deals with patients, providers and insurance reveals a lot about how
    well run the hospital is – in my view.

    And someone who knows how to do “IT” for a hospital system is someone I’d trust to do IT for the state and no, it’s not a “remote” job.

  4. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    “Some of those leaving have taken positions with one of the major private IT vendors doing business with the Commonwealth.”

    Duh. No one-year waiting period in this arena. And if not going through that revolving door, these positions in any private company pay way, way better than state service. Medical professions and the investment folks at VRS get salaries more commensurate with private competitors, but not the IT leaders. Absent some real evidence of something “being wrong,” your implication, this is a sufficient explanation by itself.

    I’ve been in state government and I’ve been on the fringe of the C-Suite at a gigantic industry. Very different worlds — the business world is leaner, meaner but the money saved often flows to the most talented staff. I learned this magical phrase, “annual incentive.” Does success in a state agency earn a middle manager a bonus equal to a hefty percent of annual salary? Never.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      These were not middle managers. One was the Youngkin-appointed agency head who resigned after about a month on the job and went back to his old job. (The rumor is that he thought he could serve as the Va. agency head in a remote capacity from Kansas.) The others had been with VITA for several years and could have bolted for the private sector at any time.

      1. Stephen Haner Avatar
        Stephen Haner

        Well, the upper managers got bonuses in the 25-30% range. Absent evidence of discontent, and given the time to bolt might not have been during the pandemic, it probably just reflects that those folk do have other choices. The guy who wanted to work remote, well, if true that was a failure during the hiring process to explain what was expected.

        Hey, at that level in any endeavor you ask yourself what is next, is there a path up, and if no path up the path goes out.

        1. CrazyJD Avatar
          CrazyJD

          Isn’t there another possibility? Ordinary politics? I would want to know the politics of those leaving and what happened during their tenure.

          The Chesterfield County Registrar, who manages elections, left in March to take a similar position in Pima, AZ. If you look up Pima AZ, you find a county that is very heavily Democratic and liberal. Nothing wrong with that, they get to vote the way they want. But it was clear that some of the shenanigans taking place in the Registrars office in what had been a Republican county were not going to be able to continue under a Republican state administration after a series of Democratic state administrations. The departing Registrar, being no fool, perhaps realized that things were going to change.

          If I recall correctly, VITA has a long history of screwing things up, mostly in the last 20 years. There was only one Republican administration during that time. And he inherited a contract with Northrup signed by a Democrat four years earlier. Things crashed 9 months after that Republican took office.

          We’ve now had Democratic administrations for the last eight years and now suddenly a Republican administration run by some guy who actually has some experience running a large organization. Could it be that the VITA administrative chaps could see the hand, writing on the wall?

  5. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    This would be better a wholly contracted operation.

    “Some of those leaving have taken positions with one of the major private IT vendors doing business with the Commonwealth.”

    Eliminating this completely.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      Most of it is contracted out. However, there is a need for security folks, procurement staff, project managers, etc.

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Well, given a few left to take jobs with contractors, I should hope they’re not working on the State’s contracts they negotiated. Remember the 1980s and all the trade negotiators who wound up taking jobs with Toyota, and other Japanese companies? Some people have no sense of the appearance of impropriety.

    2. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      What, you didn’t have enough fun under Warner’s contracted out IT debacle?

  6. Virginia Gentleman Avatar
    Virginia Gentleman

    Is nobody concerned that these people who recently negotiated multi million dollar contracts while at VITA are now working for those companies who were awarded those contracts? What happened to the 12 month revolving door policy? Same is true with the previous Director of DSS who is now employed by a company selling to DSS. Where is the ethics police?

  7. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY3eOtJwOhE

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