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Smaller Overall, New State Budget Still Finds Money for Tech

The state's 2020-2021 Fiscal Year budget is about 6 percent smaller than last year's and takes into account a projected $54.3 billion shortfall, due to the economic climate brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But it also finds funding for several technology and innovation projects and initiatives.

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With less than 48 hours before the start of the 2020-2021 Fiscal Year on July 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the new California state budget late Monday, a $202 billion document that is about 6 percent smaller than its $215 billion 2019-2020 FY predecessor.

The California Department of Finance has not yet made the budget available in detail, delineating funds at a departmental level; Techwire will have additional coverage when that happens. However, a higher-level exploration of the new budget reveals new and ongoing commitments to tech and innovation including in the areas of modernizing unemployment benefits systems, wildfire prediction and broadband access as well as in cybersecurity and earthquake early warning.

“Investments in technology have already advanced the ability of government to deliver services during the current pandemic, and the state is committed to building on this progress to make California an example of what government should look like in the 21st century,” state officials wrote in a section of the budget summary titled “Transforming State Government.” Among the takeaways:

• The state will move forward to build a new CA.gov website — building on lessons learned in March from standing up covid19.ca.gov. The new CA.gov, the budget’s authors wrote, will be user-centered to give residents “simple, easily understood transactions” and access to all state information through a single portal. The budget summary didn’t specifically mention alpha.ca.gov, which envisioned a new CA.gov. And the new Office of Digital Innovation, officially created this time last year in Newsom’s first state budget, will likely play a key role in service delivery across the state enterprise.

“In an effort to transform the way the state conducts business and serves Californians, the Administration will use the Office of Digital Innovation to assist agencies and departments to rethink how to meet the public’s needs, including by delivering more government services online,” according to the budget summary.

• The state will drill down on in-person processes and telework. The Government Operations Agency will work with the Newsom administration as well as agencies and departments to identify classifications and positions that can telework without disrupting citizen services. The COVID-19 pandemic has also “challenged the state to re-examine in-person processes to protect state employees and the public,” spurring the development of online, mail and kiosk channels by the California Department of Motor Vehicles as well as a new Service Advisor on the department website. DMV also launched its Virtual Field Office (VFO), enabling “a substantial majority” of transactions to be done virtually.

“The state will build on DMV’s successful pilot program and look to implement similar digital-based services in other agencies or departments that provide a direct service to the public,” officials wrote.

“The next steps include improved VFO efficiency, fully digitizing items in the VFO by increasing the use of technology, and to fully automate these items. In addition, the DMV plans to add more high-volume items to this channel,” DMV Director Steve Gordon told Techwire via email.

• The new budget will include $46 million for continued implementation of the Employment Development Department’s (EDD) Benefit Systems Modernization project, consolidating its unemployment insurance (UI), Disability Insurance, and Paid Family Leave benefit systems.

“The state of EDD’s information technology system and the need to replace it has come into sharp focus during the COVID-19 pandemic as millions of Californians have accessed the system to apply for UI benefits,” according to the budget. EDD has received roughly 6 million claims since the middle of March, and residents have expressed frustration with the system.

• The budget offers support for broadband expansion, with $2.8 million and three positions from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Utilities Reimbursement Account to enhance the CPUC’s broadband mapping activities. The goal is to use that information to “better inform the state’s broadband infrastructure grant program, improve safety by providing broadband speed data at emergency response locations such as fairgrounds, and enhance the state’s ability to compete for federal broadband funding.” The budget also includes statutory changes aimed at helping the state compete for federal dollars to improve broadband access. In April, the CPUC made $25 million available from the California Teleconnect Fund for hot spots and Internet service to student households; and $5 million available from the California Advanced Services Fund Adoption Account for computing and hot spot devices.

• The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services’ (CalOES) budget includes $117.6 million for emergency preparedness and response, and within that is funding for the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC). This includes $11.1 million from the General Fund in FY 2020 21 — including $7.6 million from the General Fund in FY 2020-21 for CalOES — to “enhance the state’s critical cybersecurity infrastructure.” According to the budget, the money will pay for a “full-time Joint Incident Response Team to bolster the state’s capabilities in preventing, mitigating, and responding to cyberattacks.”

• The budget includes a General Fund investment of $2.9 million in Information Technology security staffing and tools, for resources to strengthen “security and cybersecurity infrastructure,” to protect patient health records at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

• Wildfire prediction and forecasting will continue to receive funding. The budget provides $4.4 million from the General Fund ($7.6 million ongoing) to enable the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) to implement “new, pioneering wildfire prediction and modeling technology that was procured through the Innovation Procurement Sprint process initiated through Executive Order N-04-19.” That’s likely a reference to the proof-of-concept CAL FIRE worked on with the California Department of Technology, the Department of General Services and vendor Technosylva, for a cloud-based subscription product to help firefighters predict the path of a wildfire. The project is now formalized with a three-year contract, and predictive software to integrate with Computer Assisted Dispatch (CAD) systems will begin rolling out at the end of July.

The budget includes $2 million from the General Fund, ongoing, for the Wildfire Forecast and Threat Intelligence Integration Center, under CalOES, to improve emergency response “through improved forecasts for tracking and predicting critical fire weather systems, which improves situational awareness of fire threat conditions in real-time.” It also includes $17.3 million from a one-time loan from the School Land Bank Fund for the California Earthquake Early Warning Program.

• The budget includes $25 million from the General Fund in FY 2020-21 and FY 2021-22 to modernize court operations to achieve efficiencies and improve online access to court services. According to the budget summary, this could include “enabling electronic case filing, digitizing court documents, resolving disputes online, and utilizing video technology to facilitate remote participation in hearings.”

• Under the California Department of Health Care Services, the budget includes $10 million from the General Fund in FY 2020-21 and 2021-22 for IT improvements to caregiver resource centers.

• The budget also includes $2.4 million Dealers’ Record of Sale (DROS) Special Account money for the California Bureau of Firearms to achieve firearms IT modernization — planning and analyzing the combination of existing firearms tracking systems.

Theo Douglas is Assistant Managing Editor of Industry Insider — California.