Colorado OIT Overhaul Finally Meets Failure With Consequence

The Colorado Sun reports that the Governor’s Office of Information Technology is laying off 173 employees, about 15% of its workforce, as part of a major operational overhaul after years of poor customer-satisfaction scores and negative feedback from agencies, auditors, and legislative oversight bodies. OIT supports the behind-the-scenes technology for state services millions of Coloradans rely on, including unemployment benefits, SNAP, Medicaid, tax refunds, cybersecurity, and digital services across state agencies.

The article says OIT’s customer satisfaction moved only from 31% to 36%, far short of the 67% goal set by Chief Information Officer David Edinger. The cuts are expected to save $4 million in the first full year and $8 million annually after that. Sarah Tuneberg, who has led successful digital-service projects inside OIT, will take over as the office shifts toward smaller product-oriented teams embedded with agencies. In government terms, this is a rare sighting: failure met consequence, and somewhere a task force fainted.

The Bullet Point Brief

• OIT is cutting 173 jobs after dismal feedback from the very agencies it is supposed to serve. That is not a “communications issue.” That is customers saying the toaster is on fire.
• The office supports digital systems tied to benefits, Medicaid, unemployment, tax refunds, cybersecurity, and basic state operations. Government tech is boring until it breaks, then suddenly civilization depends on a password reset.
• The layoffs are not tied to AI or the state budget shortfall, according to OIT leadership. They are tied to performance. In Colorado state government, that sound you hear is accountability creaking open like a haunted barn door.
• Public employees are human beings, and losing a job hurts. But sympathy for workers does not require taxpayers to permanently fund a broken operating model.
• The new model emphasizes smaller teams working directly with agencies to build products that actually work. Radical stuff: ask customers what they need, deliver it, and stop calling every broken database “modernization.”

My Bottom Line

I serve on the statewide Colorado Benefit Management System Executive Steering Committee, an advisory group connected to CBMS, the system used to manage benefits across Colorado’s human services universe. Imagine if government designed a software system. That is CBMS. And yes, it is dysfunctional in many, many ways.

Recently, the Colorado Department of Human Services and Colorado Health Care Policy and Financing hired a product head for CBMS. She has my complete confidence. Colorado OIT does not. That is not personal. That is earned skepticism after too many years of state technology feeling like it was built by committee, patched by panic, and explained with buzzwords.

This overhaul looks like a rare sighting of accountability in Colorado state government. Not because layoffs are fun. They are not. Public employees have families, mortgages, and lives, and nobody should gloat over 173 people losing jobs. But taxpayers and frontline agencies also deserve systems that work. Sympathy for employees cannot become a blank check for dysfunction.

In the private sector, “dismal customer satisfaction” usually means somebody gets reorganized before the copier cools down. In government, it often means a study, a task force, three listening sessions, a consultant contract, and a new logo. So if Colorado is actually overhauling OIT because agencies complained, surveys were ugly, and the numbers were embarrassing, good.

Now come the adult questions. Who was in charge while this drifted? How long was it allowed to drag on? What measurable improvements will taxpayers see? How will frontline counties and state agencies know the system is actually better? And will Colorado finally stop treating “modernization” like a magic word that eats money and produces a login screen from 2009?

Colorado taxpayers fund these systems. County workers depend on them. Families waiting on benefits are affected by them. This is not abstract IT bureaucracy. This is food assistance, health coverage, case files, cybersecurity, payroll, licenses, refunds, and the daily machinery of government.

Public systems have to perform. If this overhaul produces better service, better accountability, and fewer excuses, then good. But if it becomes another reshuffling of boxes on an org chart while the same broken habits survive underneath, then Coloradans will have every right to ask why the state keeps calling failure a transition plan.

Source: The Colorado Sun