Pennsylvania governor unveils CODE PA, a digital services transformation effort

[FakeNoose]

(link) https://statescoop.com/pennsylvania-code-pa-digital-services/

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at tackling digital services transformation. It established the Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience, or CODE PA — an in-house team to modernize state services.

During a press conference Tuesday morning, Shapiro said CODE PA will contain a full-time, internal team of digital services experts who will be paid with existing budget dollars and work across state agencies to create digital programs, streamline online services and write code for applications and digital products.

“We are going to build a comprehensive, user-friendly online experience for all Pennsylvanians, and we are going to save taxpayers money that would otherwise go to expensive contracts with external consultants and third-party vendors,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro appointed Bryanna Pardoe, who most recently led a digital team at Main Line Health outside of Philadelphia, as CODE PA’s first executive director. He said she’ll lead a team of user experience designers, software engineers, product managers and data scientists.

- more at link -

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Much needed, and doing so on a dime an heroic effort

State websites have improved, contacts have improved, interfaces have improved. But still some lag with ancient software, that's my guess. Strengthening the state is a great idea. Too much contracting in PA. Contractors and companies feed off it. Taxpayers pay for it. That's the GOP way. Private contractors. Money, equals campaign contributions.

[Deminpenn]

2. This is an absolutely fabulous money-saving initiative

Bringing the digital expertise in house is the right move. Government, at all levels, spends millions of dollars hiring consultants and companieis to analyze and design systems that often are incompatible with current systems or take years to implement and probably require the expense of continuing contractor support.

Having one central office that understands the state's current systems to update, upgrade and support them is the way to go. There's a lot more tech savvy civil servants than most people realize.