California climbed from a B+ in 2016 to an A- in this year’s Digital States Survey for its continued efforts to manage a vast population and massive economy with the help of strong tech initiatives.
The California Department of Technology (CDT), under the leadership of its director, state CIO Amy Tong, and the chief deputy director, Deputy CIO Chris Cruz, has made particular strides in its commitment to agile methodologies for project development and procurement, and pushing this out to state agencies ensures that citizens can receive services efficiently.
As part of this commitment to service delivery, programs like Get CalFresh harness user-centered design to create easy-to-use apps for citizens. In the first year that Get CalFresh was used to streamline benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), there was a 43 percent increase in applications in counties using the program versus those who were not. The program is now being rolled out statewide.
To further meet users where they are, CDT has made an effort to make as many services mobile as possible. This includes a Franchise Tax Board app, so users can track their state tax return status and make or schedule a payment. The Secretary of State's Office has a mobile app for finding voting information, and those are only a couple of examples.
To protect against the ever-present threat of a cyberattack, in 2017 the state established the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC), and the first-ever statewide Security Operations Center, which blocks more than 200 million breach attempts each day.
In anticipation of the legalization of marijuana in the state in 2018, a partnership among the Bureau of Cannabis Control, the Department of Food and Agriculture and the Department of Public Health launched an online cannabis portal offering a one-stop shop for information on licensing, regulation and consumers. More than 5,000 cannabis purveyors now hold state licenses, and the California Cannabis Track-and-Trace system follows and records all cannabis transactions to monitor safety and ensure market regulation.
