CIO PERSPECTIVES
Delaware’s Path to Digital Service Delivery An interview with James Collins CIO, Delaware
In late April, more than 30 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits as the economic fallout of COVID-19 closed workplaces and devastated businesses. Their rush to already overwhelmed government unemployment services sent claims and inquiries soaring, and government IT systems nationwide floundered because of the surge. Websites crashed and claims stalled, delaying unemployment benefits disbursement. But the Delaware Labor Department website didn’t crash, not even once. In fact, it added new features. The reason for the state’s success was the relationship building, information sharing and preparation of technologists, James Collins, Delaware’s CIO, said in a late April interview with GovLoop.
Understanding Pain Points You’ve heard all across the nation about unemployment issues and how the departments of labor nationally are struggling to keep up with the demands of unemployment benefits, which are critical for people being able to pay their bills, take care of their family. So, we got engaged in a conversation with [our Labor Department], and they were struggling with some things that we could be helpful with. We weren’t the first thought of, “Hey, let’s talk to the CIO or the IT people about this.” They were just doing the best with what they had available to them.
Collins’ team didn’t just package up added servers, CPUs or RAM. Although IT did increase processing power, which ultimately prevented the website from going down, Delaware’s Technology and Information Department (DTI) went beyond technobabble. After making sure everything worked, the team added common-sense functionality for employees and the public.
In the Department of Labor, they have an Unemployment Insurance Division. That’s where their demand has increased exponentially. They’re processing in a week what they processed in months before. And so, behind the scenes, we added some processing power, some horsepower — however you want to put it — to their infrastructure.
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