IE11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Kim Reflects on DGS Tenure Amid Transition to Yolo Role

“Now, between DGS and CDT, we’ve got a stronger relationship and alignment than we’ve ever had. Our (state) CIO, Amy Tong, her team, our team with Angela Shell ... I think we’ve got things really nailed down."

kim-green.jpg
Daniel Kim is leaving state government next month after 5 1/2 years as the award-winning director of the sprawling state Department of General Services, a 3,500-employee entity with an annual budget in excess of $1 billion. In February, he’ll step in as assistant county administrator of Yolo County. In a wide-ranging interview with Techwire last week, Kim offered some insights, some testimonials and some advice for his yet-unnamed successor. Here are excerpts from that conversation.   

It’s a stout job

“This position is a really complex and challenging position, but it’s incredibly rewarding. I think I’m the third-longest-tenured DGS director, which is kind of crazy when you think about a department that really needs to have a lot of stability in order to function. But there has been turnover — the last person who was here for more than five years was 30 years ago. I’m the first person to overlap two administrations. I think that goes to show the challenges of this position, having to marry this idea of, you’re a control agency and you have to make sure that departments are doing things the right way. At the same time, you’re a customer service entity, and how do you marry the two? Because you cannot take this as a zero-sum proposition; it has to be a win-win. And that’s something that I’ve been really trying to strive at: How do we do both really, really well? And I think we’ve done that in a number of different areas.”

A huge, automated footprint

“When people think about DGS, they think about us as, ‘Well, you guys just make rules, and you do business operations. You’re not dealing with climate change, like the EPA is, or the Energy Commission.’ But we do. We have a huge footprint. We have 58 state buildings; that’s about 19 million square feet. We lease about 20 million square feet. So when we say we’re going to retrofit our buildings, when we say we’re going to have a zero net energy policy for construction of new buildings, when we say we’re going to electrify all new buildings, that has a huge impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. … That really creates momentum; everyone looks to California.

“It even got us to think: Do we need this much paper? Can we do automated workflow? Why don’t we create a customer Web portal, and why are we getting all this stuff in the mail? The Division of the State Architect now has electronic plan review, so all of the blueprints that they’re looking at, they’re looking at on their computer terminals. And because of that — we implemented that a year ago — they’re able to work from home, whereas if we hadn’t implemented that, we’d be in a really sorry state. And we would not have school construction, which is really vital right now because we’ve got to get the economy going. So all these things — it’s not an either/or. We’re seeing a confluence: Wow, if you’re sustainable, you can have automated workflow, we can have customer service, we can have accountability. That’s the thing about automated workflow … we know where everything is in the queue.”

Faster procurements, fewer RFPs  

“Think back a couple of years, when we spent a lot of time with the Department of Technology to figure out who does what. It was very unclear in terms of procurement: Who is responsible for what? We spent over a year interrogating that: What makes sense? What’s your strength, what’s our strength, how do we play to our strengths? And we got legislation enacted to separate and distinguish those roles, so that CDT is really focusing on larger IT projects, and we’re looking at commodities and services. But even within commodities and services, there’s an intersection: What is a commodity versus a service these days? Is a refrigerator IT?

“There are very basic kinds of questions. Now, between DGS and CDT, we’ve got a stronger relationship and alignment than we’ve ever had. Our (state) CIO, Amy Tong, her team, our team with Angela Shell, (deputy director of DGS’ Procurement Division), I think we’ve got things really nailed down. We’ve also worked really closely together on RFI2, to really see how can we expedite innovation and come up with a new tool for our toolkit. But we want to be very deliberate in how we utilize that. We’re also utilizing 6611 to negotiate. There are so many important things related to ‘How do we do procurements appropriately? How do we not get into situations of protest?’ And over the past 5 ½ years, you’ve not seen these major procurement issues and challenges and protests, because we’re very deliberate and we’re very thoughtful about that.

“At the same time, we’ve sped up the procurement process. One thing I’ve really tried to instill within DGS is how do we take more of a project management approach to how we do an RFP or a solicitation. How do we shrink that timeframe to get things done? And we’re doing that. At the same time, I want to get us to the state where we’re doing fewer RFPs. So how do we do multiple awards? How do we get more vendors on the SLP (Software Licensing Program)? How do we give that autonomy to departments to pick and choose from qualified vendors? Because we shouldn’t be doing the picking and choosing. We should be setting the parameters, the criteria, ensuring that we have qualified vendors that can charge appropriate prices for services.”

A history with Amy Tong

“Amy and I have been working together for probably the past nine years. When I was at Public Health — I was the chief deputy director  — I took a very deep interest in IT and IT procurement, because we had every division with their own IT shop. So I consolidated IT within my shop and then realized we had licenses for the same product in multiple divisions within the same department! Amy was working at the Health and Human Services Agency at the time, and we jointly said: ‘This is ridiculous. We have to do this (consolidate) for the entire agency. We have so many licenses. We were not going to pick one, but amongst the three different vendors that we had committed to, why do we have 25 contracts? Why don’t we have three?’ So we both have been committed to this process for a while. And I think that’s why we have been in such great alignment between our two departments since I’ve been in my position and Amy’s been in her position.

“The Newsom administration very much wants to work with local governments, very much wants to use the power of our purse, and I think all of us don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Amy and I have been much more in the weeds on this than I think maybe past directors have.

“Fundamentally, it’s really important to have trust and for our departments to be able to say, ‘Listen, we have these larger interests, larger goals, and how do we not misinterpret intentions?’ We’ve had a really strong relationship and really tried to move the dial in the same direction. That doesn’t always mean we have these smooth conversations. We have different interests in our departments at times. But we’ve always tried to work towards the same larger goal, and that’s been very helpful to the state and both of our departments. And I think the vendor community realizes that.”

Giving vendors a say

“We’ve had these IT vendor forums — it’s both departments together. We want to move in the same direction. We don’t want to finger-point. And I think it’s always important to get a sense of what stakeholders, suppliers think. I’ve done this throughout my career, whether it’s with homeless services or whether it’s with IT vendors. It’s really important to get a sense of why they’re doing what they’re doing — and what is bugging them about the way we’re doing things. Conversely, we like to share with them, ‘These are the issues that we’re having with you.’ I’ve shared publicly in IT forums: ‘What don’t you like about our terms and conditions? Tell me. And we will tell you why we have them — and we’ll revisit.’ That’s why it’s important to have that kind of forum.

“And for DGS and CDT to hear it at the same time, that’s important, because we deal with different aspects. We’re going to really rely on them (CDT) to tell us: What do you need from technology? We’re not the experts in that. We’re the experts in procurement; we know how to procure what you want, but you have to tell us what you want, what direction you want to go in. Then, we’ll tell you, we need an IFB (invitation for bid), or are we going to do an SLP, or an RFP — how do we score the points, this and that. And that’s where our expertise comes into play.

“We are very lucky at the state to have someone with the expertise that Angela Shell has, and her commitment to improving procurement. She is a national leader in what she does, and she knows this stuff inside and out.”

Creating a pipeline 

“One of the things I’ve been really proud of: Since I’ve been director, and given my tenure here, I’ve been able to hire the vast majority of the executive leadership team at DGS, and I’ve got to say, we have the strongest executive team in the state of California — and we have people that are going to be in the state (government) for many, many years. A lot of folks in their 30s, early 40s — we’re not talking about two years from retirement. They are going to transform state government for many years to come.

“DGS is a very complex organization … so these people have expertise at what they do. But we need a leader who will push — not push, but pull people towards that vision. The challenge oftentimes is how do the different, disparate divisions work together? We have, I think, the best IT shop in California, and if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have all these automated workflows, the electronic plan review, the Web portals — they have been fundamental to the success of our department. We have an incredible fiscal and budget shop. We have developed a price book where we have been transparent about all the rates we charge — 1,000 different rates. Every year, we publish what the rates are going to be, why we’re going to raise the rates and what we think the rates will be next year, so the departments can prepare. And our fiscal team, we cut in line from other departments to implement FI$Cal (Financial Information System for California). No one wanted to implement FI$Cal. We cut in line. ... I had accounting staff with sleeping bags in their offices and cubicles. I’m not kidding — many pizza parties on weekends. And we implemented it, and we are the experts among all state departments, in how to actually operate FI$Cal.”

What should Yolo know?

“They should expect someone who’s going to listen. And the questions I’d like to ask people are, ‘What are you doing really well that you’re really proud of? And how do we sustain that? What keeps you up at night, and what can I do to help you with that?’ Those are the things they should think about. I’m not going to go in and say, ‘The state does it this way; this is better.’ I want to help solve their problems.

“In my role, I’m going to be responsible for a lot of the operational aspects of the county, and that includes the budgeting and working with the departments on cross-boundary issues. … I’d like to see what I can do to help Yolo County with economic development.

“I’ve always loved local government for how tangible it is. At the state, you develop the policies and you’ve got the funding, but the implementation and execution of direct services is largely at the county level.”

Personally speaking

Kim and his wife, who’s also an executive in state government, have two teenage daughters together. He describes the family as supportive and close-knit.

“COVID has been terrible on so many different fronts and accounts, but I think in some ways it’s helped families focus on what’s important. We did our first 1,000-piece puzzle last month. That was nice.”

Dennis Noone is Executive Editor of Industry Insider. He is a career journalist, having worked at small-town newspapers and major metropolitan dailies including USA Today in Washington, D.C.