Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t focus on the California Department of Technology (CDT) in delivering his $222.2 billion proposed 2020-2021 Fiscal Year budget last week, possibly because when it comes to the numbers, the agency’s profile isn’t dramatically different from either Newsom’s proposed budget last year or the one lawmakers adopted.
In fact, if legislators were to adopt Newsom’s proposed budget today, CDT would be approved for a bit more money than it was last June. (Newsom will release a revision of his budget this spring, and the Legislature will have until June 15 to approve a budget.) Here are a few things to keep in mind as the budget process gets underway in earnest:
• At nearly $443.8 million, CDT’s budget that Newsom proposed Friday represents a more than 10 percent increase over last year’s adopted department budget of nearly $402 million. The department has shed a few positions, however, going from 746.1 positions in the budget for last year’s fiscal year, which ends June 30, to 741 positions — a drop of less than 1 percent. Neither of those figures in last year’s budget changed between Jan. 10, when Newsom proposed his first budget, and June 27 when the final budget was enacted.
• The new budget includes $5.1 million in General Fund money for an endpoint protection platform to provide security to specific state entities in one of two “major program changes.” The entities aren’t specified; the funding will let them “safely transition from legacy antivirus systems to endpoint protection contracts with minimal disruption.”
• The budget also includes $15.1 million in General Fund money for the state Security Operations Center and Audit Program, to convert 49 existing positions in the Office of Information Security that are currently funded through the Technology Services Revolving Fund.
“The requested funding will ensure that the Security Operations Center (SOC) and the Information Security Program Audit can continue to provide critical statewide security benefits to state entities while enabling those state entities to focus their limited resources on remediating identified security vulnerabilities,” officials said in the proposed budget.
Last year’s approved budget included $1.4 million in “redirected authority” from the Technology Services Revolving Fund and nine positions to increase SOC staffing — an effort “to increase the number of cybersecurity activities the Center is engaged in” and its response capability.
• In accordance with the state Constitution, each house of the Legislature must introduce a so-called Budget Bill itemizing the state’s proposed expenditures for the next fiscal year. Those must then be approved by June 15. The two bodies that hear those bills are the Assembly Budget Committee and the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee. Each assigns various items in the bills to subcommittees for budget hearings, which typically begin in late February, after the Legislative Analyst’s Office releases its analysis.
