County government requests independent perspective on utilizing ARPA funds for digital transformation

Client background

This organization is one of the largest counties in the United States with more than 950,000 residents and includes a mixture of metropolitan, suburban and rural living.

The county is supported by an information management division which is responsible for the management, oversight and development of effective information and technology services. The division is focused on identifying and implementing high-quality, innovative and transformative IT solutions that improve government performance, efficiency and transparency at all levels and consists of 80 employees who provide support to over 40 departments across the county.

The business challenge

In 2021, the county implemented several large IT projects, including major transformations to their core systems and the deployment of new digital services to constituents. A year later, the county was struggling to fully leverage the capabilities of their existing systems and were experiencing operational inefficiencies and increased IT spend.

With the availability of $10 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the county had an opportunity to reduce the backlog of work and focus on digital transformation initiatives to move from traditional manual processes to more automated, digital solutions. The county was in need of resource bandwidth and digital transformation expertise to effectively communicate with the diverse range of stakeholders throughout the county and engaged Baker Tilly to help:

• Identify outdated processes or system deficiencies
• Recognize and set objectives for improved services based on IT capabilities
• Develop a prioritized digital transformation road map of follow-on projects with an independent perspective on how to best utilize the funds

Strategy and solution

The strategic assessment began with a survey and interviewing leadership across the 39 different county departments from a current state perspective to capture the county’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats/challenges. Future state workshops were then conducted across departments to share “the art of what’s possible” in relation to their current state challenges and to understand their future state vision to help identify people, process and technology needs.

Findings were grouped into future state capability needs, categorized and prioritized into digital transformation initiatives. The initiatives were then prioritized based on the available ARPA funds and sequenced into a road map that aligned with the county’s strategic focus areas and objectives. In addition to technology optimizations and upgrades, numerous opportunities were identified to improve process-related efforts associated to sourcing, procurement and management of contracts for goods and services.

For each recommended project, the county was provided with capital and operational expense budget projections as well as an outline of expected benefits post implementation. The information management division and Baker Tilly presented the findings, proposed road map initiatives and budget to the board of supervisors, where the road map and allocation of funds were ultimately approved and enabled the county to progress down their digital transformation journey.