Information Technology Services

Overview and department mission statement

The scope of ITS services encompasses all acquisition, implementation and support activities relating to information and communication technologies utilized for County business. Businesses directly engage with ITS in planning and strategic decision-making processes. The full range of stakeholders for services extends to all potential users of County information resources internal and external to the organization.

Information Technology Services embraces and promotes principles and values of excellence, diversity, equity, and inclusion established in mission statements at the County-wide level. The department's mission statement articulates a consistent commitment to achieving service excellence, cost-effectiveness, and innovation as we provide the technical resources allowing business partners to do the same:

• To empower the County mission by providing technical solutions that multiply the effective, efficient, and excellent services provided by County businesses.
• Enable. Support. Always.

Demands, challenges and opportunities

Information Technology Services pursues our mission facing high demand for service, evolving challenges, and emerging opportunities. Success is demonstrated through delivering and supporting comprehensive technical capabilities for over 2200 county employees and sustaining the current work environment with an awareness of evolving needs and an eye to the future. ITS works continuously providing the services to sustain and continuously improve a portfolio of services delivering the performance, stability, security, and compliance to meet all needs in the current environment for all County departments.

Change is a constant mandating an awareness and informed focus on the future. Strategic initiatives in the current environment reflect objectives to optimize web technologies, enhance mobility, leverage collaboration tools, and expand the value of data resources through advanced analytic tools.

Operational environment

Washington County provides employees access to a robust set of technical resources as standard work tools. Employees are equipped with a well-configured, network connected, Windows-based personal computer (desktop or notebook). The PC is essential to employee productivity, providing access to personal productivity software, business applications, and the vast resources presented through the Internet.

Supporting the operational environment comprised of over 2200 end users across all departments is the daily priority of the department. County computer users count on an enterprise computing environment that delivers the access, performance, capacity, stability, and security required in the era of digital business.

The Office of the CIO has overall executive responsibility for the department. The department's 87+ technical professionals are organized into teams along technical functional lines. The technical support teams include Infrastructure Services, Enterprise Applications and Solutions Engineering, Land, Spatial and Digital Experience. The Project Management Office leads and coordinates major initiatives across the department. A strong administrative team supports the vital business functions for the department including fiscal and human resource management.

Planning and budgeting

ITS leads budget development and management for all technology investments through an annual process. The department takes direct responsibility for developing and managing operational budgets. Stakeholders are engaged in formulating annual capital requests supporting strategic initiatives.

The department is committed to maintaining a balance between the demands of the operational environment while outlining a reasonable path forward for investment in new directions. This balance is a key component of the ITS mission and a driving factor in the ITS approach to strategic planning and budgeting.

Efforts to transform the budget process beyond the legacy year-to-year focus to a longer-term perspective are underway. Recently implemented tools for service management are delivering insights on performance and resource requirements, allowing greater visibility on resource commitments, options and priorities.

Innovation and initiatives

The department is committed to continuous technical innovation and ongoing improvement of service for the customer.

The ITS technical project portfolio typically contains over 50 initiatives of varying scope and significance. Our project commitments support the efforts of our partners to leverage technology to enhance and transform their businesses. Project efforts expand existing capabilities, refresh critical infrastructure, and implement new solutions. The portfolio spans the areas of IT service management, field force empowerment, collaboration, workflow, data visualization, and information accessibility through web-based engagement.

Efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the department's services are continuous. A progressive enterprise architecture vision is guiding a multi-phased effort to improve team alignment for all support areas and to establish enhanced engagement of business partners.

Since its formation in FY 18-19, the Project Management Office is driving improvement in vital areas of business analysis and project management. The ITPMO is responsible for the management of the overall portfolio of ITS projects. Working collaboratively with the Functional Managers, the ITPMO directs, coordinates, and supervises staff in all aspects of Project and Portfolio Management, assisting with the development of business focused strategic roadmaps, and the execution of project management plans to ensure all projects stay within scope, on-time and within budget. Additional responsibilities include assisting with establishing and implementing the strategic direction of the department and aligning resources with the business needs of County departments.

Current generation infrastructure options are being pursued, redefining directions in provisioning servers, storage, and end user devices. The guiding principles of cloud first, web first and mobile first are priority considerations as the enterprise computing environment is refreshed and enhanced.

Security, continuation of operations, and compliance

Information technology factors significantly in all aspects of the business and service delivery model for the County. Any disruption of normal operations of the enterprise architecture translates into an immediate impact to the County's capacity to deliver services and pursue its mission. Efforts to establish maximum resiliency and prepare the technical environment and stakeholders for the widest possible range of potentially disruptive scenarios is an on-going imperative for the department.

With much of the information processed being of a sensitive nature, the County maintains a commitment of significant resources to assuring adequate security and data controls are in place. Upholding public trust entails major efforts for ongoing compliance to major mandatory data management and security specifications.