Oklahoma Governor Consolidates Information Technology Infrastructure to Save Taxpayer Dollars

OKLAHOMA CITY, May 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- To help reduce costs and increase efficiencies in its technology infrastructure, the Information Services Division of the Office of State Finance (OSF) is soliciting the best ideas from the information technology community in the form of a request for proposal. Interested parties are required to submit responses no later than 3:00 p.m., Central Time, June 12.

The request for proposals comes on the heels of a study released last year that found the state could save more than 15 percent by consolidating nearly all aspects of its 130 agencies' IT operations.

The study also found that Oklahoma, at the time, was the only state that had not consolidated its wide-area network to a single network, maintaining multiple networks by state agencies.

Since taking office in 2011, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has made it a priority to create a sustainable IT model to meet the needs of the State.

"When we put an emphasis on IT consolidation a year ago, we found that within our state agencies there were 129 e-mail and Blackberry servers, 25 agencies running their own e-mail accounts and 30 data center locations," said Governor Fallin. "Since discovering this, we have taken steps to modernize our technology infrastructure, which has already given a significant return on our efforts and saved taxpayers' money."

Fallin added, "I look forward to the next phase of our consolidation plan which will reduce complexities, improve customer service and again spend fewer Oklahoma taxpayer dollars."

Under the direction of Alex Z. Pettit, Oklahoma's chief information officer, the state is looking at six categories for solutions: Application Development; Networking; Server Virtualization; Desktop Administration; Storage, and Document Imaging. Details can be found online.

"We've already found that some savings can be even greater than we expected with cooperation from consolidated agencies," said Pettit, who has projected savings in excess of $180 million over seven years.

Pettit added, "We have been given the charge of reducing the size of government, measured in terms of total dollars spent, through the use of technology. It will mean a reduction in personnel, but so far that has occurred mostly through attrition."

The purpose of this RFP is to hire a vendor or vendors to achieve those savings and ideally find even more savings in related areas. The state plans to solicit responses annually in different categories to continue to build an efficient and effective information technology infrastructure.

Interested parties can access the RFP, which has been posted on the chief information officer's website by following this link http://www.ok.gov/cio/Procurement/Solicitations/0900000055.html. 

Contact: Alex Weintz, Gov. Mary Fallin's Communications Director, 405-522-8819 or Ron Jenkins, Public Information Officer, Office of State Finance, 405-521-3267

SOURCE Oklahoma Office of State Finance