How Maryland is approaching statewide IT modernization

As state governments strive for continuous innovation and modernization amid an increasingly digital society, the Maryland Department of Information Technology has released a new plan that aims to tackle those challenges and pave the way for more efficient and effective digital government. 

“Governments across the US often suffer from IT systems that are outdated, costly, overly expansive, and do not deliver services at the quality that constituents deserve — unfortunately, Maryland has not been the exception,” officials said in a statement last week. “The IT modernization plan is both preventative and reactive, helping the state identify redundant systems that can be consolidated, upgrading or migrating critical systems that can’t be decommissioned and decommissioning unnecessary ones.” 

The IT Master Plan outlines the state’s priorities for modernizing government services from 2026 to 2028, centering around strengthening IT capacity and culture among state employees, centralizing IT services and improving service delivery and customer experience for residents. 

“We are in a moment where information technology is moving from a backoffice function to the center of how government drives service delivery,” wrote Katie Savage, Maryland’s secretary of information technology, in the plan released last week. “Instead of designing the system to the process, technology can fundamentally alter how we conceive of the process itself.” 

A critical first step to government modernization is ensuring the people doing the work are property trained and familiarized with innovative technology, according to the plan. Next year, for instance, DoIT officials will pilot a new approach to managing certain IT projects. 

Under the new model, DoIT will appoint technical experts to agencies’ IT projects to provide short-term guidance for project development and deployment. The teams will advise agencies on topics like contracting, staffing and funding modifications to ensure projects are realized, according to the report. 

DoIT will also launch a new program aimed at sharpening state employees’ data and artificial intelligence literacy skills. The Maryland Data Academy will “create opportunities for state employees to better understand how data influences and drives AI solutions and improve data literacy,” the plan stated. 

Part of the data training initiative includes the creation of individual learning pathways for state employees to learn more about AI and data according to their job roles, skill levels and agency needs through DoIT’s Office of Enterprise Data. The customized training aims to support employee’s career advancement and development by targeting their tech strengths and weaknesses, according to the plan.  

DoIT officials are also continuing their efforts to shift separate agencies’ software solutions for things like mail, customer relationship management and document management to a consolidated software ecosystem across the state. 

“Centralization of these functions will promote interoperability and consistency across agencies, as well as cost effectiveness through bulk purchasing and reduced contract management overhead,” according to the plan. 

A modernized, centralized platform for state agencies can enhance cybersecurity capabilities at a lower cost for individual agencies and enable users to leverage statewide data visualizations to further inform agencies’ efforts to improve operations and outcomes. 

“By lowering barriers to sharing and engaging with state agencies’ data, the platform will promote more effective collaboration, streamline results, and drive innovation, while reducing costs through collective investment,” the plan states. 

Strengthening state employees’ tech capabilities and their IT practices will ultimately help the state deliver better services to its residents, which is another priority for DoIT in the next few years. 

“Good technology is technology that enables our agency staff to do their work easily and effectively, and seamlessly meets the needs of our residents transacting with the state,” according to the plan. 

DoIT calls for improving the design and accessibility of government websites and other digital resources like benefits applications. Officials will, for instance, work to further consolidate information across the state’s more than 800 websites and 400,000 artifacts, like documents and separate webpages, to make it easier and quicker for residents to find the information they need. 

One area the state is targeting for improving residents’ interactions with the government’s digital landscape is the permitting process. With more than 1,300 state permits available to customers, the plan underscores how many applications are still paper-driven or include unclear language, redundant questions and vague feedback or status updates from authorities, according to the plan. 

DoIT will address this challenge by leveraging user research and exploring service-design approaches to inform efforts to improve how residents find and engage with permitting resources. The agency is also planning to launch a series of pilot programs aimed at streamlining the permitting and licensing experience to address complicated application steps and reduce processing times, according to the plan. 

To track the state’s continued progress toward statewide modernization, DoIT officials will track key performance indicators and outcomes, such as potential cost or time savings through DoIT-supported projects. 

Other metrics include the adoption rates and satisfaction scores of new technologies across agencies, the number of state employees participating in innovation-related training programs and the reduction of technical debt and system redundancy. 

“All of this work has put us in a much stronger position to support great technology solutions at our agencies that can deliver on the statewide mission to leave no one behind,” according to the report.