City really, really needs a chief technology officer, councillors told

Sault Ste. Marie City Council will be asked next month to create a new chief technology officer position as part of a sweeping multimillion-dollar information technology upgrade.

"What we're suggesting is quite transformational," John Naas from Toronto-based Blackline Consulting told councillors tonight.

Naas says the city has been seriously underspending for years on IT.

To get City Hall back up to speed, he says $4.7 million in capital expenditures plus $550,000 in annual operating expenses are needed over the next five years.

The lion's share of the recommended capital costs are for staff, not infrastructure, Naas said.

He's recommending the city add a half-dozen additional full-time-equivalent staffers to the 10 currently working in the city's IT department.

In addition to the new chief technology officer, Naas proposes hiring a tech project co-ordinator and a head of project and vendor management in 2019, as well as a second project co-ordinator and lead strategist in 2020 and a business analyst in 2021.

The city's current spending on information technology is less than one per cent of total municipal spending.

"In comparison to benchmarks and peers, the city is underspending in IT by two to three per cent of the city's operating expenditures," says Blackline's report.

"There are over 30 initiatives that currently require IT's involvement, which is more than double the number of IT staff. To address this backlog, the city may need to revise its approach to prioritizing projects and workload for IT."

Here's Blackline's nine-point plan for addressing the city's IT deficiencies:

• enhance the city's network resilience and capability
• modernize the city's IT and technology assets
• enable a mobile workforce
• establish processes for change and project management to support the city
• create disaster recovery capabilities
• define the city's target architecture
• implement a city-wide data warehouse and analytic solution
• restructure the approach to IT management
• establish guidelines for data management and governance

"I personally think it's a good investment," said Ward 1 Coun. Paul Christian, adding that it will be important to ensure staff are properly trained in the new systems.

The Blackline proposals will be discussed at City Council's next budget session on Feb. 4.