Tag Archives: Agency of Digital Services

A Few Dispiriting Peeks into the Black Box of State Government

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Because I usually finish what I start, the “Drafts” section of this site’s back office is mercifully brief. It contains exactly one unfinished blogpost. That one is more than four years old, and I long ago despaired of ever pulling it off.

Its title is “We Have No Idea How Well State Government Performs.” I honestly believe that statement is true, but I’ve never finished it because it would be an absolute bear to research — to try to catalogue examples of state government failing to work as it should, when I suspect that most examples remain safely concealed in a bureaucratic mountain that gets little meaningful independent oversight.

But three recent news items provide solid evidence in support of the working theory that our state government is not nearly as efficient or effective as it could be.

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The Loneliest Overwhelmingly Popular Governor in Town

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At last week’s press conference, Governor Nice Guy spent much of the time wearing his Frowny Phil mask. Lots of unpleasant subjects: The still unsettled emergency housing program, all the veto overrides, plus Auditor Doug Hoffer’s scathing report on his pet administrative project, the Agency of Digital Services, which gave him the opportunity to unfurl an obviously scripted and vigorous defense of ADS. (Outgoing ADS Secretary Shawn Nailor was in on the presser for no reason at all, just in case some reporter asked about the agency. When the question did arise, Scott and Nailor just couldn’t stop trumpeting the former’s vision and the latter’s execution.)

On top of all that, he had the opportunity to wallow in his profound political isolation. Not a lot of fun for a politician with an approval rating of, what was it, 163 percent or something?

Gov. Scott was clueless about how we’ve arrived at the point where an historically popular leader is on the short end of historically lopsided legislative supermajorities, and had no idea what he might be able to do about it. Plus he made it clear that his divorce from the Vermont Republican Party is complete and irrevocable.

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Agency of Digital Services: High Promise, Low Performance

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Gov. Phil Scott’s reputation as a sound manager of state government took another hit last week — well, it should have taken another hit — with the publication of Auditor Doug Hoffer’s report on the Agency of Digital Services (downloadable here). In short, Hoffer examined six major IT projects and found that only one was completed on time and under budget. He also found that five the six had such “poorly defined measures” that it was difficult to determine success or failure, and that there were “limited efforts or plans” to ensure the new systems met expectations. That’s, um, not good.

The agency was a centerpiece of the then-newly elected governor’s “overall strategy for modernizing state government.” Scott unveiled ADS in mid-January 2017, just days after his inauguration, as a way to unify and streamline what had been a scattered information technology effort. Hoffer’s audit suggests that the agency has fallen far short of Scott’s promise.

It reminds me of Scott’s much-touted commitment to “lean management.” You may not remember that phrase because it’s been years since he uttered those words, but during his first run for governor he said “lean management” just as often as he said “cradle to career,” “affordability,” or “protecting the most vulnerable.” And he promised that in his first year in office, lean management would save one penny for every dollar spent by the state — or about $55 million in total.

Which never materialized, at all, not even close. That’s why you never hear him talking about it anymore.

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