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House Bill 1516 |
House Author: Isett et al. |
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Effective: 9-1-05 |
Senate Sponsor: Duncan |
House Bill 1516 amends Government Code provisions relating to management of state electronic services by the Department of Information Resources (DIR).
The bill authorizes DIR to include terms in a procurement contract that allow the contract to be used by another state agency, political subdivision of the state, or a governmental entity of another state and provides that use of such a contract satisfies any requirement for a political subdivision to seek competitive bids. DIR is also authorized to approve a joint information resources manager for two or more state agencies who may consolidate operating plans of the agencies.
Provisions for the department to perform commodity procurement for a state agency are included in the bill. Each state agency, except an institution of higher education, must use department-specified state commodity hardware configurations, provide a planned procurement schedule to DIR, and inform the department, the Legislative Budget Board, and the state auditor's office of any substantive change to the schedule.
The bill establishes the Texas project delivery framework for major information resources projects of state agencies. It includes provisions for a business case justification and statewide impact analysis, a project plan, a procurement plan, a method for monitoring contract changes, and a post-implementation review.
DIR is authorized by the bill to operate statewide technology centers to consolidate the provision of information resources services to state agencies and may assess fees to cover the costs of the services. State agencies are required to use the centers for data center services or disaster recovery services, with some exceptions.
The term "commodity items," as it relates to items DIR is responsible for providing, is expanded beyond software to include hardware and technology services, other than telecommunications services, for which a reasonable demand exists in two or more state agencies and to include seat management, through which an agency transfers equipment and service responsibilities to a private vendor to manage the personal computing needs for each desktop in the agency.
The bill requires DIR to maximize vendor competition and make good faith efforts to provide contract opportunities for and increase contract awards to historically underutilized businesses and persons with disabilities when contracting in relation to statewide technology centers or commodity items.
House Bill 1516 also provides for acquisition of telecommunications services from certain entities without a competitive bid during an emergency and transfers certain telecommunications services duties from the telecommunications planning and oversight council to DIR's executive director.