By admin 
More than three months after a state-government agency reorganization left 173 workers unemployed, the Governor’s Office of Information Technology has hired 15 back.
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That’s not great odds for the remaining public servants hoping to get rehired. The state agency had simultaneously announced 98 new jobs at the time of the layoffs.
Many former OIT workers are still looking for work in the current challenging economy, and continue to feel the sting of the abrupt layoff after years of working for the state, according to former OIT employees who shared their stories with The Colorado Sun.
But OIT has been in the hot seat for the past year, especially after failing to implement many of the cybersecurity resiliency recommendations offered by the Office of State Auditor. OIT has also struggled with low customer satisfaction ratings from clients, which are mostly other state agencies. A reorganization to focus on outcomes became a priority and the effort became very public May 27, when layoffs were announced.
Sarah Tuneberg, who replaced former OIT leader David Edinger on June 1, told the Colorado legislature’s Joint Technology Committee on Tuesday that progress has been made at the agency, which handles much of the state’s technology services.
She said OIT helped reduce the time low-income families spent to access a $120 benefit to buy healthy food for their children — down to 25 seconds, from two minutes. One of OIT’s core products, the state’s myColorado digital drivers license, is now accepted at airport security by the Transportation Security Administration.
“We’ve already achieved $6 million in platform savings via direct negotiations with our vendors,” Tuneberg told the Joint Technology Committee, which is tasked with oversight for OIT and the state’s technology projects.
Some savings came from using artificial intelligence at the Department of Corrections to reduce a system migration and “saving hundreds to thousands of manual coding labor hours,” according to an since the layoffs. Another $1.2 million in savings came from “reducing hourly administrative bloat” at the Colorado Department of Public Safety.
Asked for details, DPS spokesperson Gianna De Fries said in an email, “The savings were from within their department, but these savings will be used to help OIT better support CDPS through enhanced technologies and increased capacity.”
OIT also negotiated a 10% reduction in Google Cloud costs after researching how much other jurisdictions paid for similar services, Tuneberg said. While some negotiations with vendors were in the works before the reorganization, there’s more to be done, she added.
“A large part of the overall savings also came from scaling back or canceling products we weren’t using or weren’t getting sufficient ROI from,” Tuneberg said in an email. “We’re currently in the midst of evaluating the (software) tools used internally at OIT, with an eye toward consolidating on enterprise solutions that create cost efficiency through scale and centralized management.”
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Cybersecurity concerns
During the JTC meeting, Tuneberg also said OIT has seen “an uptick in external international actors attempting to attack our infrastructure,” including the possible Iranian water system attack that led her team to provide “crucial intelligence that supported that response.”
OIT also retooled its HR process, she said, after “seeing North Korean threat actors attempting to gain employment and access our systems.”
That led state Rep. Brianna Titone, the committee’s vice chair, to question OIT’s focus on nonsecurity projects.
“I’m wondering why you were prioritizing these kinds of more vanity projects than focusing on some of the other issues that seem to be more pressing … especially the cybersecurity threats,” said Titone, a Democrat from Arvada. “I have heard through the grapevine that there are many employees that are at their breaking point and are being overworked. Maybe that’s why you’re getting such great performance and cost reductions because you’re working people to the bone.”
Tuneberg didn’t address the cyber threats but said OIT’s staff is its greatest asset, but change is hard. Employee survey responses were positive, with 55% now on board with OIT’s direction, compared with 42% in March. However, according to data shared with The Colorado Sun, those who felt “stuck” had increased to 11%, from 4.5% in the same period.
“We are doing a lot of work to support employees through the change. That looks like significant amounts of training, more than we’ve ever offered. Very clear performance expectations so that people know what they’re expected to do and how they’re supposed to show up in this model,” she said. “I appreciate again that change is hard and I do not minimize that. We’re seeing people excited, and the feedback is strong.”
Nearly 3,000 people applied for the 98 new jobs, which “didn’t exist at OIT previously,” Tuneberg said in an email. Of the openings, 88 have been filled with five offers still pending as of this week. As of Wednesday, OIT employed 1,018 people.
“Where applicants haven’t succeeded in the hiring process, common themes include difficulty articulating outcomes achieved in past roles, limited ability to describe user-centered approaches, and gaps between candidates’ broader experience and the specific KSAs (knowledge, skills and abilities) required — many of the posted roles are for senior practitioners requiring direct, rather than tangential, experience,” Tuneberg said.
Colorado Workers for Innovative and New Solutions, the state employee labor union, said that only eight of the 173 laid-off workers were classified employees and eligible for union membership. But that didn’t stop the union from hearing from workers who were abruptly let go. CoWINS hosted a meeting on Monday with affected workers, current OIT employees and Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is running for governor.
“I think the biggest takeaway we’re taking from our workers contradicts what Sarah Tuneberg was saying to the JTC. Programs and services have been hurt. The workers left behind are having to cover and pick up the pieces,” said Hilary Glasgow, CoWINS executive director. “People are stretched thin. Workers have been told not to raise concerns or speak out and they are describing a climate of fear across OIT.”
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