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Friday, February 2, 2001


State of Hawaii


Cayetano seeks
$50 mil more
in tech spending


By Tim Ruel
Star-Bulletin

The office of Gov. Ben Cayetano is seeking to spend more than $50 million over the next couple years to get the state wired, on top of the $100 million already spent on technology by the individual agencies.

In a presentation earlier this week to the Legislature's House Finance Committee, Cayetano assistant Joe Blanco outlined several new bills backed by the governor, one which would also create the position of state chief information officer.

The Cabinet-level appointee would lead information policy initiatives in a role separate from Blanco, who has the title of technology adviser and the duty of encouraging more tech business. "We just need another mechanism to pull this together," said Arnold Kishi, another Cayetano assistant who helped formulate the proposal. The CIO would have a budget of half a million dollars annually, to cover the salary of $80,000 plus staffing expenses.

The $50 million the state is seeking from the Legislature would also go toward putting the government's computer system on the Internet, allowing paperless transfer and documents and records.

Blanco told legislators the benefits of the investments would show up in increased productivity of state functions, though he noted the exact long-term savings are hard to quantify.

The $50 million is broken down into $25 million for 2002 and $24 million for 2003. Officials note that the money comes on top of the total balance that all state agencies already spend on technology each year -- about $100 million. The figure comes from a survey of department directors.

Previously funded projects include a $4.2 million upgrade to the state's computer network that should be completed by July. The new equipment would enhance the speed and efficiency of data flow between the many state offices on all islands, and could ultimately replace the state's existing phone lines with an Internet-based system.

The governor's initiative would also create more than 35 new positions to run various tech projects.

In addition to the $50 million, the governor's office is also asking the Legislature to earmark $125,000 to market the state's technology benefits to outside companies.

Other parts of the governor's proposal include:

Bullet Directing the state Employees' Retirement System pension fund to make a small portion of venture capital investments in order to boost local companies.

Bullet Allotting $5 million to train state employees in new technologies

Bullet Putting government services online, including licensing, tax and court filings, payroll, billing and procurement.

The state issues a total of 60,000 purchase orders a year, and making the process electronic would save a ton of paper, Blanco said.

Blanco noted the investments also would help the state improve grades it recently received for its delivery of public services through technology. This year, Hawaii got a "C-" from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, up from an "F" two years ago, the worst grade in the nation.

"We definitely want to be in the 'B's,' " Blanco said. " 'A's will follow with a little bit more money."

Legislators were warm to the proposals, but begged for more concrete evidence of benefits to the state.

Rep. Mark Moses (R-Kunia, Makakilo, Ewa, Waipahu) said the private sector always comes up with cost-benefit analysis before spending money. "They know what they're going to get for that dollar, and we don't know."



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