May Minutes

ITAC MEETING MINUTES
May 15, 2008

Attendees: John Killebrew, Vass Johnson, Darryl McGraw and Gloria McNeill

Wake County: Velvadine Wallace, Lib Wanner

Due to work schedules, Sondra Chaffee, Niamh Darcy, Shannon Schelin, Freida Artis, Reginald Brown & Robert Michaud could not attend the meeting.

The meeting began at 9:10 am.

Lib Wanner welcomed everyone to the meeting and stated that the agenda for today’s meeting is a discussion of the IS Department FY09 Budget Strategies for the Capital and Operating Budgets and provide an overview of the proposed new Technology Project Review Process.

IS Department FY09 Budget Strategies: Capital & Operating Budgets, New Technology

Review Process:

Lib Wanner gave a brief overview of the Preliminary FY09 Technology Funding for the Automation CIP and IS Operating Budget using a powerpoint presentation. She also discussed the FY09 expansion requests with the group and noted that 3 expansion requests were included in the County Manager’s Recommended Budget: 24x7 EMS Support, one new Desktop Technician and one 800 MHz/Wireless Technician, which is a contract conversion. She also stated half of the funding request for Oracle Database Administration contracts was included in the Recommended Budget.

Lib mentioned that it has been difficult to hire qualified staff for the Oracle Database team both at the supervisory level and at the senior level which is why the budget request was made for additional contract funds. Lib asked the group if they used Oracle DBA’s and, if so if they had difficulty in recruiting and hiring Oracle DBA’s. John Killebrew stated that for difficult to hire positions they try to get someone either with strong technical credentials or with a lot of experience, but he noted that experienced talent is hard to find. Darryl McGraw asked about the impact of using more expensive contractors on existing employees since Oracle DBAs are more difficult to find and typically earn higher salaries when full time staff can be found. Lib indicated that she discussed this with her management staff and all agreed that people with critical skills can command higher salaries and that it was something that is fairly common in the IT world, so there were no big issues.

Lib then went on to discuss the proposed new Technology Review Process. She stated that in the past all projects <$250 K went through the Technology Review Process for prioritization. While the ongoing costs for most projects were discussed at the time of approval, the need for additional staff was sometimes not fully known or discussed in the process. She also indicated that the ongoing maintenance costs associated with approved projects became part of the next years operating budget and there were questions raised about that during the FY 09 budget deliberations. Lib stated that based on the feedback from the FY 09 budget process she is proposing that all technology projects with an estimated cost >$100K be approved by the Senior Management Team and all projects <$100K continue to go through the Technology Review Process. Lib then reviewed the evaluation criteria with the group. Vass Johnson suggested including the impacts of not doing projects as part of the evaluation process. Darryl McGraw suggested looking at both cost avoidance and cost savings, with an example being how VOIP projects are often justified. Lib indicated that these were good suggestions and asked the group for their thoughts on what should be included in the proposed project business cases to be presented to the Senior Management Team. Vass suggested including the source of funding and whether those were one time or recurring funds. John Killebrew suggested asking if the proposed project would generate any revenue and if it would pay for itself. Darryl suggested doing a before and after survey of customer satisfaction levels.

Lib then asked about the group’s availability for summer meetings or if they would like to take the summer off as they have done over the last few years. The group said they were fine with whatever Lib wanted to do.

Meeting adjourned at 9:45 am