COUNTY OF SAN MATEO Inter-Departmental Correspondence
County Manager’s Office
DATE:		June 29, 2004
BOARD MEETING DATE:		July 6, 2004
TO:	Honorable Board of Supervisors
FROM:	John L. Maltbie, County Manager
SUBJECT:	2003-04 Grand Jury Responses
Recommendation
Accept this report on responses to the 2003-2004 Grand Jury regarding Workplace Relationship Policies and Information Systems Management.
Discussion
The 2003-2004 Grand Jury issued reports on Information Systems Management on April 23, 2004 and Workplace Relationship Policies on May 12, 2004. The County is mandated to respond to the Grand Jury within 90 days from the date that reports are filed with the County Clerk.
Vision Alignment
This response to the Grand Jury’s findings and recommendations keeps the commitment of responsive, effective and collaborative government through goal number 20: Government decisions are based on careful consideration of future impact, rather than temporary relief or immediate gain.
Information Systems Management 1. Information Technology Management Structure Findings: Generally agree with the Grand Jury findings in the Information Technology Management Structure section of the Information Systems Management Report with the following exceptions: The position of Chief Information Officer (CIO) is specifically required to bring countywide focus to information technology (IT) spending within the County; and the CIO is accordingly charged with reviewing and prioritizing, collaboratively with other department heads, County IT initiatives. While the idea of creating an oversight board for increased coordination of IT has merit, expecting all County department heads and Agency heads to participate will make for an unmanageable committee. It is preferable to form a subcommittee of department heads who will report back to the Executive Council which includes all department heads and agency heads. The Information Services Department (ISD) does not bid on department projects for the sake of covering operating costs. During the budget development process ISD makes an assessment of current and future projects and appropriates resources accordingly. The charge-back model of funding for ISD allows all departments to work with ISD to prioritize their projects based on the cost benefit analyses for their individual projects while the decentralized model of IT staffing allows departments to maintain cost control over the maintenance costs for their existing IT investments. Listed below are responses to specific recommendations for the Information Technology Management Structure section. Recommendation: The Board of Supervisors should immediately: 1.1 Adopt a collaborative IT governance model and restructure the management of Information Technology in the County under an Information Services Steering Board consisting of all Department Heads (with ISD as a member but not in control), and chaired by the County Manager to drive the strategic direction for technology for the County. Response: With the County Manager’s support and in an effort to establish a more collaborative culture for IT management in the County, the CIO is forming a department head level IT Steering Committee. This IT Steering Committee will be instrumental in providing IT direction for the County. It is essential that the CIO head the IT Steering Committee because of the enterprise-wide IT view that this position brings to the County. This approach, with the support of the County Manager and the active participation of the Executive Council, will provide a cross-disciplinary venue for comprehensive and collaborative IT solutions. The committee will be charged with the responsibilities as set forth by the Grand Jury’s recommendation (1.2). The County Manager has chosen the department heads that will participate in the IT Steering/Oversight Committee. The Committee will consist of eight department heads. The current plan is to have this Committee meet on a monthly basis with the first meeting to be held during the first quarter of FY 04-05. 1.2 Charge this Information Services Steering Board with responsibilities for: • Strategic direction of Information Technology • All Information Technology investments, budget, and project funding • Prioritization of Information Technology projects • Countywide technical standards and security • Oversight of centralized systems and applications • Network infrastructure design Response: Concur. Department heads throughout the County and the CIO, with the support and participation of the County Manager, have created an IT Steering Committee charged with the responsibilities listed in the Grand Jury’s recommendation (1.2). This IT Committee will provide oversight and help set IT direction for the County. It will provide department head level support for other cross-departmental IT groups, i.e. LAN Administrator’s Group (LAG), Standards Committee, Web Advisory Group (WAG). These groups will elevate ideas and concerns to the IT Steering Committee who will then come to a consensus on the best solutions. The Committee meeting is scheduled to commence during the first quarter of FY 04-05. The County Manager will develop and issue a purpose statement for this committee and the committee’s first order of business is to develop a charter in support of the purpose statement. The Committee will determine and agree upon the specific responsibilities during the initial meetings. 1.3 Redefine the role and resource requirements of the Information Services Department in the County to focus on maintenance of the network infrastructure, management of network security, management of some minimal centralized technical services, telecommunications, and participation on the Information Systems Steering Board for assessment of emerging technology, joint development of network and operational standards, and joint development of network and operational security plans. Response: While ISD’s design and ongoing support of the County’s data and telecommunications network have been understood and supported throughout the County, ISD will continue to support the IT needs of all County departments in other engineering areas. The value proposition of leveraging the current business model of ISD is high for all County departments as opposed to a completely decentralized/departmentalized IT staffing model. The expense of each and every department paying for 100% salaried positions for department-based IT management and support staff is not cost effective because regardless of the level of requirement for IT staff they incur a fixed expense. The ISD business model is to have individual departments pay for the services that are needed and used, rather than incurring the expense of full-time position(s). The San Mateo Medical Center and Health Services Agency provide an example of ISD’s largest customer appreciating and effectively using the current business model. Health Services and the Medical Center formerly had their own internal IT department, Health IT (HIT), which was charged with all IT operations. HIT, as a model, failed because the Medical Center is not in the business of providing IT services and is much better focused on their business – providing high quality client care. Due to a series of budget overruns, failed timelines and problems with project implementation, the Board of Supervisors and the County Manager moved HIT operations and all of its functions under ISD. The Medical Center and Health Services have recognized improvements in IT services and continue to utilize ISD for their IT expertise and services. Examples of improvements recognized by the Medical Center and the Health Services Agency include an increase in systems availability and application support. Other County departments, the Controllers Office as an example, have also sourced their IT management and support needs to ISD allowing them to focus on their core business. As it relates to responsibilities beyond network, telecommunications, etc., ISD has the knowledge and technical skills to maintain and develop the programs and systems necessary to run on most computing platforms. ISD’s image and performance has improved in the area of project management and application development in last fiscal year (03-04). Under the new leadership team in ISD the quality of work as well as timeline and budget compliance has steadily improved. Working with the Board of Supervisors, County department heads, the County Manager’s Office and department-based IT staff, ISD and the CIO will continue to demonstrate the value of ISD while concurrently supporting department-based IT staff. 1.3.1 Transfer the entire organization providing hospital operations services to the San Mateo County Medical Center Department Head. Response: Disagree. Please see response for recommendation 1.3. 1.3.2 Review the Information Services Department Reserves and advise the Departments exactly what equipment is being replaced, when, and at what costs, requesting the concurrence of the Information Systems Steering Board in this expense plan. Response: Concur. ISD managed reserves are available for review. The following reserves listed are the major reserves set aside by the Information Services Department and represent the majority of the total department’s reserves, $3,984,974. For additional details and reserve purpose please see Exhibit 1. Reserve Beginning Balance 7/01/03 Additional Funding FY2003/04 Estimated Balance 6/30/04 Telephone System Reserve $926,716 $200,000 $1,126,716 Admin Microwave Funding $915,870 $0 $915,870 Network Reserve $612,994 $150,000 $762,994 Radio System Reserve $225,731 $100,000 $325,731 Technology Conversion Reserve $260,000 $65,000 $325,000 Total, all major reserves $2,941,313 $515,000 $3,456,311 Chart 1: Major ISD Reserve Funds The IT Steering Committee will be the governing authority on what equipment is being replaced, when, and at what costs. Major infrastructure improvements are typically done in accordance with the IT Strategic Plan, the Customer Business Needs and are subject to the approval from the Board of Supervisors. ISD managed reserve amounts and reserve justifications are reviewed by the County’s Service Charge Subcommittee. ISD reserves must be approved by the County Manager’s Office and the Board of Supervisors. In the recommended budget for FY 04-05 ISD, proposes spending $634,000 on replacement equipment. 1.4 Remove any limitations on the Departments regarding Information Technology resources, job classifications or job titles they are allowed to employ in meeting their business needs within authorized budget constraints. Response: Disagree. The Employee and Public Services department will continue to review all requests for new positions to ensure that job classifications and related compensations are commensurate with responsibilities. Currently the systems engineer series (associate systems engineer, systems engineer, advisory systems engineer) and project manager classifications focus on cross-departmental and multi-disciplinary Countywide IT needs. If these classifications were open for all departments to use, the County and those positions would lose the ability to maintain linkages to multi-disciplinary initiatives, due to the nature of the positions being departmentalized. Further, the institutional knowledge developed by current staff would be lost. This scenario would make it difficult for these positions to maintain a Countywide focus and would likely become more departmentally specific. This lack of Countywide focus could lead to the following issues: • Initiatives developed in silos, lacking comprehensiveness • Increased cost due to duplication of work/initiatives • A reinforced departmental-centric culture (limited departmental perspective versus a countywide perspective) • Potential idle resource capacity • Limiting breadth within career paths 1.5 Redeploy project management and business systems positions currently in the Information Services Department to the Departments. Response: Disagree. Please see response for recommendation 1.4. The Board of Supervisors should direct all County departments to immediately: 1.6 Develop Communities of Interest for oversight of business processes that flow across departmental boundaries, and the joint development of Information Technology projects to support those business processes. Response: Concur. Countywide there is a hierarchy of committees with various levels of both departmental and ISD representatives who make up not only “communities of interest” but represent both business processes and technical focus. These IT specific, countywide committees are represented as follows: Figure 1: Committee Hierarchy This committee hierarchy is in place and is extensible to other areas of interest throughout the County. It has sustained participation that continues to maintain a Countywide perspective, rather than solely departmental. However, there are several departmentally specific committees that complement this Countywide committee hierarchy, such as Medical Center InfoTech, The Criminal Justice Executive Committee, The Fiscal Officers Committee, etc. The Board of Supervisors should direct the Information Services Department to: 1.7 Continue to maintain a minimum of centralized services for departments that collectively determine the Information Services Department is more economically positioned to perform such service than the department is itself. Response: Concur. ISD currently provides services centrally and in conjunction with department-based IT staff in order to meet the business and technical needs of the County while leveraging operational and cost efficiencies through a centralized service delivery model. 1.8 Discontinue providing any systems/applications development and project management services to the Departments and assist in the joint efforts of a Communities of Interest to seek the most cost effective experienced vendor for the services required. Response: Disagree. The discontinuation of systems/applications development and project management services to the departments will likely lead to a higher implementation cost, as referenced in the response to section 1.3. This recommendation has two elements: Reputation and Rates. Reputation: During the past fiscal year large scale, cross-departmental application development projects have been completed on time, within budget and to the satisfaction of the sponsoring departments. ISD’s ability to perform more effectively in the area of application development and project management is based on recent re-staffing and effective expectation management. Rates: ISD needs to become more price-point competitive with privatized IT service providers. A rate relief plan resulting in a measurable reduction in ISD labor rates, while still maintaining a high level of service, will be finalized in FY 04-05 and implemented in FY 05-06. The current ISD business model is continuously being improved upon through a better understanding of ISD’s role in the County and a transition of some IT maintenance/support activities back to the department-based IT staff. The IT Steering Committee is in the formulation process with the initial meeting being held in the first quarter of FY 04-05. Most of the other committees within the hierarchy have been established for two years or more. 1.9 Continue to pursue the development of an in-house Information Technology Technician development program for use by all Departments. Response: Working with LAG and the County Manager’s Office, ISD is developing a Countywide approach to IT training. ISD has negotiated a competitive price with LearnIT, an IT training provider, and distributed their course catalogue and course costs to all departments. This approach leverages the Countywide purchasing power as it relates to the cost of training and ensures consistency of training across departments. Some departments have already utilized the LearnIT reduced price training offerings. Follow-up on this item will be provided in a future Grand Jury update. 1.10 Share its documented strategies to support its security, cost reduction, and combination of services goals with the Information Systems Steering Board for consensus, modification, and implementation. Response: Concur. Consistent and on-going security, cost reduction, and combination of service will be documented in the form of best practices and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Service Level Agreements (SLAs), SOPs and security agreements will be reviewed by the IT Steering Committee and modified as needed at least annually. The IT Standards Committee (chaired by the County CIO, with the support of the County Manager) will give input to the IT Steering Committee on the various topics detailed. 2. Network Administration, Data Services and Telecommunications Findings: Generally disagree with the Grand Jury's findings in the Network Administration, Data Services and Telecommunications section of the Information Systems Management Report The County has several County Policies addressing network security. These policies are living documents. In a decentralized environment the recognition that we are all interdependent is critical. Information Services supports processes and programs that provide the greatest degree of participation and policy adherence. Listed below are responses to specific recommendations for section Network Administration, Data Services and Telecommunications section of the Information Systems Management Report. 2.1 The Board of Supervisors should direct the Information Services Steering Board to develop a set of security standards that address existing and emerging technologies, hardware, network access, etc. as a first priority. Response: Concur. The County currently has a security policy that addresses network administration, data services, telecommunications, user roles of these technologies, and internal County uses – Internet, email, etc. This security policy was reviewed by the LAG, then the Executive Council and ultimately signed by the County Manager and made into a County Policy. (Exhibit 2). This security policy is available online for all and is required reading for County new hires. There is an annual reporting requirement to the County Manager’s Office on recommendations, enhancements or changes to the security policy. The security policy is a living document and will continue to evolve. The IT Steering Committee will periodically review the security policy and make changes as the environment dictates. 2.2 The Board of Supervisors should direct the Information Services Department to develop an independent operations budget for network infrastructure costs that is approved through the Information Technology governance budget model by the Information Services Steering Board prior to being approved by the Board of Supervisors. Any upgrades made to the general network infrastructure should not be charged to the Departments. Response: The Fiscal Officer’s Committee and Service Charge Sub-Committee provide oversight for rate management and are responsible for all service charges throughout the County. The current model requires each department to budget funds for their network infrastructure. In the current model, infrastructure costs are directly associated to each department’s cost of business. It provides an opportunity for each department to take an active role in determining the budget impact of their network infrastructure. Centralizing the budget for network infrastructure could have the unintended effect of having the County Managers Office and the IT Steering Committee provide more oversight of departmental budgets to control costs. At present, the County and ISD are allocating costs under this current model: – each department funds its own network infrastructure. Periodically, the Fiscal Officer’s Committee and Service Charge Sub-Committee evaluate the rate structure and determine what the appropriate charge(s) should be for the County. 3. Mainframe Applications Findings: Generally disagree with the Grand Jury's findings in the Mainframe Applications section of the Information Systems Management Report. The Grand Jury makes several inaccurate statements in the Mainframe Applications section. These inaccuracies are; 1) the mainframe is inefficient, 2) The Assessors Office pays over $110,000 dollars a year to just store data, 3) mainframe costs are skyrocketing and 4) ownership of the mainframe. The mainframe is an efficient server platform. It currently runs multiple copies of three operating systems and processes over 150,000 online transactions per day in real time, executes over 1000 batch jobs per day, supports over 10,000,000 database reads per day and provides backup and restore services for over 150 servers per day. The comparative cost of an alternative computing platform, midrange or Windows \ Intel based, to provide similar data processing would be substantially higher. The Assessors Office total mainframe cost for FY 04-05 is $3,204 compared to $4,010 for FY 03-04. This cost does not approach $110,000. In an effort to control and reduce mainframe computing costs, ISD has restructured software support contracts to lower support costs by over 20%. Further, ISD has reduced mainframe printing cost countywide by more than $24,000. The county owns the mainframe outright. The lease for the mainframe ended in July 2003. Listed below are responses to specific recommendations in the area of Mainframe Applications. With regard to the mainframe, the Board of Supervisors should direct: 3.1 The County Manager, Information Systems Department, and all County Departments as part of the Information Services Steering Board to immediately develop a plan to eliminate the mainframe within one year, and engage vendors to develop replacement applications run in a server environment. Response: Disagree. Currently there are three major applications running on the County mainframe: The Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS), Case Data System (CDS) and the County payroll system (PIPS). These 3 critical applications require the high-availability and computing power of a mainframe computer. The operational impact of migrating these three applications off of the mainframe in one year would be enormous. And, the cost of such rapid migration would be an order of magnitude larger than a more orderly migration of these mainframe applications. ISD will continue to work with all County departments using the mainframe to develop a plan to coordinate the useable life of their mainframe applications with a reduction of dependency on the mainframe. A plan outlining the County’s effort to eliminate the mainframe will be completed by the 3rd quarter of fiscal year 04-05. ISD is evaluating various options for CJIS and PIPS to include migration to a mid-range system or contracting with other counties that provide similar mainframe computing environments. 3.2 The Information Services Department to no longer provide development services once the mainframe has been eliminated, but work with the Departments to find the best vendors for the development required. Response: Disagree. ISD has the knowledge and technical skills to maintain and develop the programs and systems necessary to run on most computing platforms. ISD will work with departments to evaluate and develop an action plan for the migration of all applications and services currently running on the mainframe. Until a comprehensive migration plan for the mainframe’s end of life is established, ISD will continue to provide mainframe support. ISD is currently working in partnership with HSA to determine a migration plan for their Case Data System. ISD is partnering with the CJIS Executive Committee to plan mainframe migration. Additionally, ISD is assisting County payroll departments in evaluating various options to include migration to a mid-range system or contracting with other counties that provide similar mainframe computing environments. With regard to the mainframe, the Board of Supervisors should direct: 3.3 The Information Systems Department to immediately develop and drive a migration plan for this application to a distributed serving environment. Response: Please refer to the response for recommendation 3.1. 3.4 The Information Systems Department to immediately form and lead a Business Solution Team comprised of representatives of the Sheriff, the DA, and the Probation Department to evaluate needs and costs to acquire a distributed system replacement for the Criminal Justice Information System, with particular attention paid to procedural costs and improvements (workflow analysis). Response: Concur. ISD will continue working with the CJIS Executive Committee to develop a plan to coordinate the useable life of their mainframe applications with a reduction of dependency on the mainframe. The CJIS Executive Committee is a “business solution team” representing the various functions of criminal justice and is comprised of department heads of the Sheriff’s, District Attorney’s, Courts and Probation department. The CJIS Executive Committee meets on a monthly basis. The CJIS Solutions Committee, in an operational support role to the CJIS Executive Committee, is an ongoing working group focused on ensuring the business needs of all CJIS departments are met. With regard to the Criminal Justice Information System, the Sheriff must: 3.5 Immediately evaluate systems operating on a file server platform as an alternative to the Criminal Justice Information System for jail management. Consideration should be given to the possibility of enhancing the existing Records Management System with a jail management module. Response: Concur. The CJIS Executive Committee is actively engaged in addressing this issue and will consider all possibilities for enhancing the existing Records Management and Jail Management segments of CJIS. 3.6 Reassess the interface between the Automated Warrant System and the Criminal Justice Information System based on the new state system being implemented for the Courts, and consider development of a new interface with Automated Warrant System on a file server platform. Response: Concur. The CJIS Executive Committee will continue to provide direction for the CJIS and associated systems to include the potential replacement of the Automated Warrant System (AWS). With regard to the Welfare Case Data System, the Board of Supervisors should direct: 3.7 The Human Services Agency to temporarily outsource its case management to a functioning California Welfare Information Network user county, if the California Welfare Information Network is not fully implemented by the time the mainframe is eliminated. Response: Concur. ISD would not migrate HSA’s case system files prior to the implementation of California Welfare Information Network (CalWIN). HSA and ISD are working on a detailed migration plan that includes an overlap of CalWIN and the mainframe Case Data System to ensure data integrity prior to eliminating the mainframe. Due to variances between counties, not all welfare system configurations are the same and these differences would require major customization to accommodate HSA data sets. ISD and HSA will continue to work together to formulate a migration path to CalWIN. The current San Mateo County CalWIN implementation is scheduled for a late 2005 (calendar year) deployment. The California Consortium of Counties participating in CalWIN dictates this schedule. The current mainframe-based system will continue to operate in parallel and be supported by ISD until HSA determines their CalWIN implementation is fully operational. With regard to the Payroll System, the Board of Supervisors should direct: 3.8 The Employee and Public Services Department to immediately form and lead a Community of Interest to create a Business Solutions Team responsible for development and implementation of a plan to migrate the payroll system off the mainframe into a server-based environment within one year. Response: Disagree. The operational impact of migrating the payroll application off of the mainframe in one year would be significant. The cost of such a rapid migration would be an order of magnitude larger than a deliberate and well-planned approach. What ISD recommends alternatively is for ISD to work with a “community of interest” for payroll to develop a plan to coordinate the useable life of the payroll application with a reduction of dependency on the mainframe. Working with payroll departments, ISD will continue evaluating various options to include migration to a mid-range system or contracting with other counties that provide a similar mainframe computing environment. 3.9 The Employee and Public Services Department to temporarily outsource the current payroll system if a replacement application is not in place within one year when the mainframe is eliminated. Response: Disagree. The operational impact of migrating the payroll application off of the mainframe in one year would be significant. The cost of such a rapid migration would be an order of magnitude larger than a deliberate and well-planned approach. ISD, to ensure continuity of service, will continue to maintain the current payroll system until a suitable migration path has been established for the mainframe. As noted in response to recommendation 3.8 above, ISD is evaluating various options to include migration to a mid-range system or contracting with other counties that provide a similar mainframe computing environment. 3.10 The County Manager and Information Services Department to immediately evaluate the Integrated Financial and Administrative Solution 7i personnel management system module as part of the current beta test for possible replacement of the existing payroll system. Response: Disagree. The Controller’s Office and Employee and Public Services (EPS) have in the past considered migrating human resources and payroll functions to the Integrated Financial and Administrative Solution (IFAS). For reasons relating to the high cost of integration with legacy systems this has not proven to be a desirable migration path for the payroll system. 3.11 The Information Services Steering Board to outsource all operations and maintenance remaining on the mainframe if the Criminal Justice Information System, Welfare Case Data System, and payroll systems have not been replaced within one year. Response: Disagree. As noted in prior responses the operational impact of migrating these three applications off of the mainframe in one year would be tremendous. The cost of such rapid migration would be an order of magnitude larger than a more orderly migration of these mainframe applications. ISD will continue to work with all County departments currently using the mainframe to develop a plan to coordinate the useable life of their mainframe applications with a reduction of dependency on the mainframe. A large portion of this work has already started with the Case Data System planned to be off the mainframe by mid to late 2005. This plan outlining the County’s effort to eliminate the mainframe will be done by the 3rd quarter of next fiscal year. ISD is evaluating various options for CJIS and the County payroll system to include migration to a mid-range in-house system or contracting with other counties that provide similar services. Follow-up will be provided for recommendations 3.1 through 3.11 in a future Grand Jury update. 4. Leading Technology Findings: Generally agree with the Grand Jury findings in the Leading Technology section of the Information Systems Management Report. ISD has previously published Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) standards, and these will be incorporated into the IT standards committee review process. The eGov infrastructure and common look-and-feel process for web pages has been successful, and a similar infrastructure will be created for the Intranet. The IT standards committee will be charged with reviewing the Web infrastructure for standardization. The Geographic Information System (GIS) currently operates collaboratively and will begin the next phase of actively demonstrating the value of an enterprise database to County departments and other agencies within the County. Listed below are responses to specific recommendations in the area of Leading Technology. As part of the new collaborative governance model for Information Technology in San Mateo County, the Board of Supervisors should charge the Information Systems Steering Board with the development and direction of the following: 4.1 A Community of Interest that develops a strategy for the most cost-effective and efficient way to make FileNet systems available with standards for some shared use countywide. Response: Concur. The use of and strategy for Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS), such as FileNET, will be developed through the IT Steering Committee. This committee will provide an efficient, cost-effective EDMS solution set that can be operationalized and shared on a Countywide basis. An EDMS standards document was created when FileNET was first implemented. However, the IT Standards Committee will need to update this document to reflect the current user community needs for EDMS. Consistent with the IT Standards Committee Charter (Exhibit 3) the Standards Committee will establish a sub-committee focused on setting strategic direction for Countywide EDMS. 4.2 A Business Solutions Team that determines to what level County web operating environments might be standardized for the sake of efficiency, ease of use, or cost effectiveness. Response: Concur. Early in the County’s website development there were several implementations with varying degrees of success. The departments involved in these implementations acted independently and created redundancy of effort resulting in non-shareable solutions. Since then ISD, through the collaboration with other departments, has developed several standards for web design, web applications and web guidelines. ISD has implemented a Countywide Content Management System (CMS) and common web infrastructure for use by all departments focused on the County’s Internet. Most departments utilize the County’s common Internet infrastructure. The Web Administrators Group (WAG) and Standards Committee will continue to develop business and technical standards that result in efficient, user-friendly, and cost-effective Countywide web operations. WAG regularly meets to discuss common business initiatives and provides solutions to web-related issues. The Standards Committee will provide infrastructure and development standards as they relate to the web environment on an ongoing basis. 4.3 A Community of Interest that will develop a standardized Geographic Information System data storage and manage the version controls to ensure all Departments in the County are using the same data in calculations to make business decisions. Response: Concur. The GIS Management Committee, guided by the GIS Steering Committee, is charged with the responsibility of developing enterprise GIS data storage and managing version control to ensure all departments in the County are using the same parcel and base-map data in calculations to make business decisions. The GIS charter provides for standards in the following four areas: Data, Organization, Software and Workflow. The GIS Management Committee meets on a monthly basis and the GIS Steering Committee meets on an as-needed basis. These two committees will continue setting and enhancing standards and providing direction Countywide. This Community of Interest should: 4.3.1 Collectively manage the richness of the data, and ease of accessibility to the Geographic Information System database. Response: Concur. The GIS Management Committee, under the GIS Charter (Exhibit 4), provide the forum and structure to collectively manage and allow for the productive use of the data as well as a user-friendly Geographic Information System database. The GIS Management Committee meets on a monthly basis and the GIS Steering Committee meets on an as-needed basis to ensure access to GIS data and to ensure ease of use Countywide. This Community of Interest should: 4.3.2 Develop a marketing plan that will focus on the business solutions possible for all Departments with effective use of Geographic Information System, and also considers how cities and special districts in the County can also take advantage of the Geographic Information System, selling the benefits of centralized, standardized data for a fee. Response: Concur. The GIS Management Committee and GIS Steering Committee will embark on a marketing plan focusing on all the effective uses of GIS and ways to implement them throughout the County. At the same time, they may investigate opportunities for selling standardized data to external customers. Follow-up will be provided for recommendations 4.11 through 4.32 in a future Grand Jury update. 5. Other Areas of Review Findings: Generally agree with the Grand Jury’s findings in the Other Areas Reviewed section of the Information Systems Management Report with the following exceptions: “Quality and Outcome Data Meeting Performance Targets and showing Progress” is a standard performance measurement for all County Departments. It is calculated by measuring the percentage of Program Performance Measures that met targets and improved. It is agreed that managing change in projects is critical to project success. ISD’s OBM process includes project change management standards, which include vendor and user departments’ participation. It is understood that by measuring areas over which ISD has no direct control, ISD places itself in a role of setting performance expectations, standards and demonstrating best practices. ISD is accountable for its leadership role and provides assistance and guidance to all County departments for system availability. Work Authorizations are negotiated with each department, after the Service Charge Subcommittee has agreed to rates. If, during the year services are no longer required, ISD reallocates resources and reduce costs to maintain a zero Net County Cost. Rates are not raised to recover the same revenue level. Annually, rate increases are capped by CPI/MOU increases each year (for FY 2003/04, no increase in charges was allowed). Any cost increases are due to an increase in the levels of service. With increasing labor costs, the labor rate for ISD services is an issue. During FY 04-05, ISD will complete a plan to reduce the labor rate. This reduced labor rate will be in effect in FY 05-06. Listed below are responses to specific recommendations for the Other Areas Reviewed section. The Board of Supervisors should require: 5.1 The Information Systems Department and Information Technology staffs providing Help Desk service to include in measurements of the quality of service provided, speed of access to a “live” contact, and speed of restoration of service. Response: Concur. The ISD Help Desk works in conjunction with various departmental Help Desks and\or IT staff to provide quality service and rapid access to a “live” contact. The ISD Help Desk has a Service Level Agreement (SLA) (Exhibit 5) for technician response time based on customer-determined severity level of the problem. The speed of access to a “live” contact is measured by the amount of time a user remains in the Help Desk queue. Customer satisfaction of the service(s) provided is measured through the ISD customer satisfaction survey process. Not all problems will go through the ISD Help Desk; some are resolved at the department level, through their own processes. For example, if a user in the Human Services Agency (HSA) has a problem with their computer, they would call the HSA Help Desk and HSA staff would provide them with resolution if they can. In the event HSA IT staff required assistance they would contact the ISD Help Desk and ISD resources would be assigned to help solve the problem. Additionally, if the user had a problem with their telephone, they would call the HSA Help Desk who would then call the ISD Help Desk (since phones are a part of the County’s common infrastructure). ISD staff would resolve the problem and provide the necessary service. In both cases the user can talk to a “live” person at the ISD Help Desk; where, in turn, the Help Desk will facilitate routing, tracking, escalating and resolving the user’s IT issues. Additionally, all departments are currently able to open an ISD Help Desk ticket via a browser providing an additional method (beyond telephone access) for ISD Help Desk service. This process is currently in place and is continuously evolving in order to provide high quality service. ISD is currently in the process of upgrading the current Help Desk software in order to better track issues throughout the County. Some departments are investigating ways to upgrade their current Help Desk software to ensure timely and more appropriate technician assignment and resolution of issues. 5.2 The Information Systems Department to stop setting goals for less than satisfactory performance as perceived by customers, and require additional supporting measures of improvement to indicate percent improvement over time. These same measures should be implemented to measure vendor performance when the Information Systems Department no longer provides development services. Response: As part of the Outcome Based Measurement (OBM) implementation, there is a need to establish project management baselines. In FY 02-03 the emphasis was on determining the baseline project management measurements. Since then, each year these metrics have been increased in the four areas outlined in the Grand Jury Report: Projects meeting primary goals, Projects completed on time, Projects completed within budget and Customer survey responses. In FY 03-04 and FY 04-05, the targets have been set for a satisfactory or higher baseline. Current-year targets indicate that at least 70% of completed projects will meet primary goals. By comparison, the industry average for IT projects being completed on time, within budget, and meeting project goals is only 28% (Standish Group 2001 report that reviewed the outcome of over 280,000 IT projects worldwide). Other industry sources quoting a Standish Group 2004 report state 15% of IT projects fail outright and another 51% are challenged (challenged is defined as either over budget, late or with less than originally specified functionality). ISD’s FY 04-05 performance targets are: 75% of projects will meet primary goals, 70% of projects will be completed on time, and 70% of projects will be completed within budget. These targets are in alignment with or exceed industry norms for IT project management. ISD’s ability to meet these performance targets will be reported bi-annually in the County’s Performance Measure Report. 5.3 The Information Systems Department with the Information Systems Steering Board and Communities of Interest to document a change management process that tracks the impacts on the project’s scope, time, and cost measured by whom they are initiated (Information Systems Department, vendor, or Client Department). Measurement of the overall success of a project should include the impact of negotiated changes. Response: Concur. This process currently exists within ISD’s Project Management Outcome Based Measurement (OBM). Specifically there are tools and processes in place to track the changes listed above. The OBM process requires that a Project Change Control Form be filled out whenever a customer, vendor or ISD makes changes that impact the project i.e. scope, time or cost needed to successfully complete the project. Once the form is completed and agreed upon by all parties, the modified project is tracked and evaluated under the new criteria. At the completion of the project, a project post-mortem analysis is conducted to ascertain the differences between the following: initial project budget, modified project budget, and actual project budget. These metrics feed into the overall reported success of the project. 5.4 All Department leaders involved with Community of Interest projects affecting multiple Departments to establish joint goal setting with all participants. Together they should determine business process impacts to be measured and assume joint accountability to attain them. All project teams should measure the success of a project from the using customer’s perspective. Response: Concur. The IT Steering Committee will provide a forum for multiple departments to determine business process impacts, accountability and coordinated goal setting for “community of interest” projects. The customer’s measurement of success is captured through the OBM customer satisfaction survey process. For more information on the IT Steering Committee and departmental participation on various committees throughout the County, please see response to item 1.6. Information on the customer satisfaction surveys can be found in the County’s bi-annual Performance Measure Report. 5.5 The County Manager and the Information Systems Department to restructure the Information Systems Department Information and Technology Services Availability measurement so that the Information Systems Department measures and reports only on the components for which it is accountable and does not report on component availability and functionality that it does not manage or operate. Response: Disagree. In an effort to provide meaningful data for review, a comprehensive, end-to-end measurement of the County’s computing environment is required. The purpose of the current end-to-end measurement is to identify whether County staff can access their applications. Network appliances under ISD’s umbrella of support as well as PCs under departmental control share equal responsibility in providing staff access to applications. If ISD were to focus solely on network appliances, departments would be required to generate similar data (a duplication of effort) and the separate reports would need to be blended to provide meaningful data. Fiscal year 04-05 will be the 3rd consecutive year ISD has provided comprehensive, end-to-end measurements of the County’s computing environment on a quarterly basis. 5.6 All Department Heads with Information Technology staffs to measure performance and systems availability in areas over which they have control. Each Information Technology group should develop and track its own availability measures, providing action plans for areas not meeting expectations. Response: Please refer to the response for recommendation 5.5. 5.7 The Information Systems Department and the Departments to track the availability of each of the systems within their management control against the scheduled hours of operations for each. Response: Please refer to the response for recommendation 5.5. 5.8 That with the restructure of Information Systems Department and removal of responsibility for development and project management, the Information Systems Department should charge rates for its remaining services, vendor evaluation, and assessment of emerging technology under agreement and close scrutiny by the Information Systems Steering Board. Response: Concur. Through the current ISD business model, as referenced in the response to 1.3, ISD services are provided through charge rates set by the Fiscal Officer’s Committee and Service Charge Sub-Committee, as referenced in the response to 2.2. The charge back policy as set forth by the Fiscal Officer’s Committee and Service Charge Sub-Committee is currently in place and re-assessed annually. 5.9 The Information Systems Department to immediately develop an action plan to meet its goal to implement an in-house Information Technology Technician development program, offering advanced training and skills to departments with internal support staff to better maintain the departmental Information Technology environments. Response: Concur. As referenced by the response in 1.9, ISD is coordinating consistent training as a key element of Information Technology Technician development. Each department has the opportunity to use countywide training. Technical training is readily available to those departments which choose to take advantage of these developmental opportunities. Attachments: Exhibit 1 – Departmental Reserves Analysis Exhibit 2 – Information Technology Security Policy Exhibit 3 – Countywide IT Standards Committee Exhibit 4 – Geographical Information System Charter (Draft) Exhibit 5 – ISD Service Level Agreement (Draft) Workplace Relationship Policies Findings: Generally agree with the findings with a few exceptions noted in Exhibit 6 – Grand Jury EEO Policy Recommendations. 1. By July 1, 2004, review and update all policies related to discrimination/sexual harassment to reflect current law. Response: Concur. Employee and Public Services worked with County Counsel to update the current policy, which is attached (Exhibit 7). As reflected in #2 below, Employee and Public Services reviews (and updates, if necessary) the EEO Policy at a minimum annually and more often if there are legislative changes. 2. Before September 1, 2004 adopt as necessary, policies to provide for: • annual policy reviews • harassment awareness training to all employees within six month of hire and not less than each three years thereafter; • harassment response training to supervisors within six month of hire and not less than each two years thereafter. Response: Policy review: Concur. The Employee and Public Services Department reviews (and updates, if necessary) the EEO Policy at a minimum annually and more often if there are legislative changes. Training: San Mateo County has been proactive in conducting sexual harassment training for employees, supervisors and managers since the mid-1980’s. In 1984 all managers and supervisors attended a mandatory 4-hour comprehensive program on sexual harassment and in 1985 all employees attended a mandatory training. Since 1985 all new employees have received sexual harassment training as part of their new employee orientation. On an ongoing basis, sexual harassment training is conducted in departments or divisions where there has been a sexual harassment complaint or the need has been identified. All managers and supervisors again attended mandated harassment/sexual harassment training in 1999 and 2000. All new supervisors receive sexual harassment training as part of a 48-hour supervisor program. In FY 2002-03 the County had 14 sexual harassment complaints all of which were unsubstantiated or resolved internally. No complaints were filed with the EEOC or DFEH or resulted in litigation. In FY 2003-04 the County has had five complaints, all resolved internally. Based on these statistics, the commitment of resources recommended by the Grand Jury to conduct training every 2 and 3 years for approximately 750 managers and supervisors and 4,400 employees is not necessary, appropriate or cost effective. 3. Include the date of creation and any revision on each page of its harassment policies. Response: Concur. This has been the County’s practice. 4. Include a requirement that employees be notified of all substantive changes in any harassment policy within 30 days of the effective date of the change. Response: Disagree. We currently notify employees in a timely manner of substantive changes in harassment and other EEO policies; however, the determination of what is “substantive” can be subjective. Given the complexity of changes in the laws, legal reviews, and distribution to over 5,000 employees, a 30-day timeframe may not always be realistic. 5. Before September 1, 2004, formalize into written policy any unwritten informal expectations and practices related to nepotism and romantic relationships. Response: Nepotism: Concur. The County’s nepotism policy already exists in the County’s Charter. County Counsel is aware of the upcoming January 1, 2005 changes in California law concerning nepotism and domestic partners and will make recommendations for any changes to the Charter. Romantic Relationships: The County advises managers and supervisors of the potential for sexual harassment complaints to arise from the existence of romantic relationships. Any complaints subsequently filed are dealt with under the EEO Policy. 6. Before September 1, 2004, to the extent not presently in existing policies, consider incorporating explicit language into current discrimination/sexual harassment policies that reflect the “best practices” recommendations referred to in this report, particularly those that promote trust and lessen anxiety and provide employees reason to believe that complaints will be handled promptly and fairly. Response: Concur. The revised EEO Policy is attached and incorporates the majority of Grand Jury recommendations. Attachments: Exhibit 6 – Grand Jury EEO Policy Recommendations Exhibit 7 – San Mateo County EEO Policy