LANSING ? Despite budget cuts by Gov. Snyder, technology projects were not be among those cuts and saw a $7 million increase from the current year for 2015-16, Technology, Management and Budget spokesperson Caleb Buhs said. Snyder has put a major emphasis on upgrading the state’s IT systems, which in many cases when he took office were ancient in technology terms.
The IT Investment Fund, charged with covering the costs of technology upgrades, will increase to $70 million under the proposed 2015-16 budget, Buhs said. Much of that funding will be for ongoing projects, but he said there will be some new projects starting next fiscal year as well.
Among the key ongoing projects is the replacement for the state’s accounting system.
The increase to the fund will be dedicated largely to security, a subject where Buhs said Snyder has been a leader since taking office. “He’s trying to make people aware of how real this threat is,” he said.
Among the new security projects is a new system for the state’s 3,000 servers. In addition to moving all of the servers to the same security program, Buhs said the new program would offer better monitoring and security notifications.
Some of the funds also will be used for staff training. “It takes a lot of effort to stay ahead of the game,” Buhs said.
The move is counter to what had been done under prior legislatures and administrations to counter revenue losses, Weiss said. But Buhs said the investments so far have saved the state $3 million.
“He tried to keep the cuts to Lansing … to see how we can downsize government,” Weiss said. “One of the ways we can do that is through IT. So he wants to maintain his commitment to IT.”
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