State Employees Union Asks Lege To Delay Tech Privitization Measure (And Open Records Concerns)

The Texas State Employees Union has asked legislative leaders to delay the approval of a contract that would privitize the computer and technology departments of 27 state agencies.

As ammo for their argument, the union cites two contracts with the Health and Human Services Commission which have been “troubled.”

During the last session of the Legislature, a state law was approved to allow the state’s Department of Information Resources to oversee consolidation and privitization of much of the state’s information technology systems.
Touted as a money saving measure initially, the plan will cost the state millions, according to the union:

“DIR accelerated the schedule for signing this contract,” Gross said. “When state agencies rush into massive and complex IT projects such as this one, the result for Texas taxpayers is always bad. DIR needs to take a more deliberate, cautious approach to make sure that it gets this complex project right.”

Thirty-one data centers, 16 mainframe computers and more than 7,000 computer servers at 1,300 locations are covered by the department’s outsourcing contract, according to the union.

Privitization of IT functions of the state brings up another point of interest, especially when it comes to public information.

For example, consider that PIA requests are often filed for old emails which, though long erased from an individual’s computer, are stored in mainframes in some form or another for a good while.

While there is established law that just because the subcontractors are in charge the material is still subject to disclosure under the Public Information Act, it begs the question of whether or not subcontractors should be responsible for this type of activity and what supervision they’ll have when handling such matters.

After all, it’s much easier for a state agency to blame a subcontractor for the “dissapperance” of data than it is to blame high or even mid-level staffers who may have made data that was unflattering go away.

I’m not saying this has happened in the past (if it has, I’m not personally aware of it). But, the fact that information subject to the public information act may be managed by subcontractors who have little or no training in matters related to the Texas Public Information Act is alarming, to say the least.