WaTech is excited to announce the Technology Services Board (TSB) on July 13 approved more than $900,000 in funding from WaTech's new Innovation and Modernization Fund (IMF) for five agency projects aimed at improving state services.
The funding will help modernize antiquated systems and processes at state agencies. For example, the Department of Ecology is receiving $152,700 to automate its current paper-based system to process several hundred water rights each year. Ecology's paper system will be replaced with a user-friendly customer portal to access applications, apply and pay the fee(s) online, and check the status.
The money for Ecology, and the other agencies that were approved, comes from an appropriation created by the Washington state Legislature earlier this year that enables WaTech to provide funding to agencies looking for innovative ways to modernize their systems. All of the projects are "shovel ready," so to speak, and expected to be completed before the end of the current fiscal year. All of the projects will have WaTech oversight.
"We're eager to see how agencies use this funding to help improve state services for Washingtonians," said Nick Stowe, who is Washington State's Chief Technology Officer and serves as chair of the Information Technology Investment Board (ITIB). "I'm very proud of everyone involved in this effort. It was a big accomplishment to identify innovative projects and get them funded within a matter of weeks after the Modernization fund was created."
The ITIB oversees the IMF. Nick noted that within two weeks of sending out a notice of funding opportunity on May 31, WaTech received 20 proposals from state agencies. By the end of June, the ITIB had reviewed and scored the applications, approved five and presented them to the TSB for consideration and a vote.
WaTech still has some funding left in the IMF and will be evaluating the remaining proposals that were submitted to see if more projects can be funded. WaTech, Nick said, also plans to draft a budget request this year to seek additional funding from the Legislature for the IMF.
Here are the agencies and projects that received funding:
- Health Care Authority: $255,013 to deploy an electronic consent management solution that facilitates patient-authorized exchange of sensitive data and is scalable, secure, sustainable, and meets provider needs.
- Department of Ecology: $152,700 for a water resources online customer portal to authenticate users, view applications, review requirements for online application submission, and submit applications online.
- Secretary of State's Office: $150,000 to purchase a solution that replaces antiquated, legacy technology generating high volume of problem tickets and manual reconciliation work for the agency.
- Eastern Washington State Historical Society: $108,000 to replace collection management system with new software to support the museum's objects and archive/special collections. The project automates manual processes and expands access to its collection database.
- Washington State Patrol: $250,000 to adopt ServiceNow, a Low Code platform, using cooperative development and knowledge transfer to support future development and migration of legacy applications to ServiceNow.
For more information visit the Innovation and Modernization website.