ISD Work Plan 2025

Introduction

This information expands upon goals and performance objectives shared with the Board of Supervisors during the budget workshops in April 2024. Additionally, it also includes elements based on feedback from the Board during the workshop, anticipated and enacted legislative changes, and enterprise needs identified in consultation with County partners.

The activities described below often include a certain level of synergy, where the results of one or more projects increase effectiveness or add value in other areas. The proposed work plan includes a sequence of objectives that offer a glimpse into future activities to be accomplished based on a phased approach.

All goals described below are funded and can be completed within existing resources during the 2025 calendar year.

2. Performance Goals

2.1. Status of Prior Year Performance Goals

2.2. Performance Goals for CY 2025 – January 2025 through December 2025

2.2.1 Increase Transparency and Access to Government Records

Description: Plan and implement technologies and business processes that improve the County’s ability to more effectively locate, store, process, and retrieve government data.

Measure: Complete the projects described below within the 2025 calendar year:

Public Records Act (PRA) System – Phase II – Enterprise-wide process improvements and training consistent with Board/CEO feedback and direction, recommendations from the Deloitte assessment conducted in 2024, and the California Public Records Act. This may include an informational website and eForm hub for submitting/tracking PRA’s subject to decisions on more comprehensive adoption of enterprise-wide solutions.
- Status: Completed
Records Retention – Initiate the review and revision of Records Retention schedules for County enterprise to ensure ongoing compliance with evolving legal requirements, support transparency, and continue improving the management and preservation of public records. Expand educational outreach to departments and develop trainings and videos accessible via the County’s Learning Management System (LMS) and intranet related to Records Retention and PRA requirements and best practices.
- Status: Completed

Background Information: County residents are seeking greater access to information to better understand the function and activities of local government. These inquiries must be addressed within mandated timeframes, and this often places a significant operational burden on departments. In partnership with the CEO, Human Resources (Risk), and County Counsel, ISD will introduce improvements to assist departments in evaluating, locating, and delivering information associated with these requests.

In 2024, local media made repeated inquiries on the effectiveness and responsiveness of Records and PRA request processes. Many articles were published on this topic, emphasizing the importance of County efforts already underway to ensure that these programs and services meet legislative mandates. Throughout the State of California, interest has grown and many ballot initiatives and legislative measures have been proposed that could mandate changes to current practices with a relatively short lead time.

The efforts described above are intended to help us revisit current practices, improve service delivery, ensure County staff understand requirements for retention and retrieval, and modify services where necessary in anticipation of required changes. Ideally this effort will also result in more uniform enterprise-wide practices for consistency and create work efficiencies.

2.2.2 Expand Adoption of Enterprise Technologies that Improve Government Services

Description: Adopt, expand, and modify technologies to help County departments and agencies deliver effective public services to our residents.

Measure: Complete the projects described below within the 2025 calendar year:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Implement Board approved AI policy. Assist departments with evaluation, approval, and implementation of AI tools and services. Provide resources and training on enterprise-wide AI technologies. Where appropriate, centralize procurement and payment for AI technologies to reduce individual effort and create cost efficiencies. Engage in legislative and policy efforts towards improved adoption of AI technologies.
- Status: Completed
IT Strategic Planning – Phase I – Prepare a multi-year strategic roadmap proposal for consideration by the Board and CEO for improving adoption of technologies and services that support the business needs of the County of Sonoma. Elements will include a specific proposal for ISD’s currently supported clients and services, considerations for broader enterprise needs, and opportunities for creating countywide cost efficiencies.
- Status: Deferred. Time sensitive, mission critical projects such as IJS modernization have required unanticipated levels of additional effort. As a result, ISD contacted our CEO early in the cycle and received approval to delay the start of this project. Work will continue outside of the formal Work Plan process in the coming year. ISD has already met with county IT leaders from peer organizations that have successfully adopted similar strategies and executed a contract with a NACo CIO Reservist to assist with evaluation of deliverables as they are prepared by ISD.
Enterprise Project/Portfolio Management – Implement AI enabled project portfolio management platform within ISD and offer departments opportunity to join effort with customizations for their needs. The goal is to offer an opportunity for introducing standardization in project tracking and resource utilization.
- Status: Completed
Digital Transformation – Continue CY 2024 Work Plan Goal to increase adoption of eForms and digital workflows to reduce reliance on paper documents, foster work efficiencies, and improve service responsiveness for residents. Expand documentation and employee trainings to encourage broader adoption with less reliance on ISD for implementing eForms. Pilot AI enabled tools for improving digital service capabilities.
- Status: Completed
.GOV Domain Migration – Consistent with AB 1637 and the federal DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act, convert all sonoma-county.org email addresses to the sonomacounty.gov domain and all ISD supported websites to .GOV domains. This change increases public trust in the credibility of information received from the County of Sonoma, assists in maintaining eligibility for state and federal funding that supports local government services, and improves cybersecurity. ISD will share adoption information with other County departments and agencies not on the main county network to help with their ability to adopt these requirements.
- Status: Completed

Background Information: Most local government organizations share common technology needs but independently research and select technologies to accomplish shared goals. This is duplicative and increases time and cost for selection, administration, training, and licensing. Additionally, when employees move between County departments, they must be retrained on local implementations for technologies and business practices that could be adopted enterprise wide.

ISD is seeking to take a more proactive approach by acting as an early adopter, seeking opportunities to introduce efficiencies for commonly shared needs that benefit the County enterprise. The goal is to reduce cost, create efficiencies, and reduce effort required to maintain compliance with regulatory changes and legislative requirements.

2.2.3 Enable Modern Technologies While Reducing Technical Debt

Description: Eliminate and/or replace legacy technologies that the County is reliant on for delivering critical public services.

Measure: Complete the projects described below within the 2025 calendar year:

IJS Modernization – Phase II – Design and integration of connectors for justice partner Line of Business applications. Populate a data hub with day forward justice partner data that allows for real time notifications and updates among justice partners and the Courts.
- Status: Completed
Voice Communications Data Center Decommissioning – Execute the Phase I decommissioning plan completed in 2024 and vacate the data center space by the end of the 2025 calendar year so it can be repurposed for other needs.
- Status: Completed

Background Information: ISD regularly evaluates the County’s enterprise technology portfolio and plans for upgrades and maintenance to ensure uninterrupted service that meets the needs of our business partners and community. In rare instances, technologies which are 40-60 years old were not included in this routine planning effort. These systems must be completely replaced as they are no longer compatible with modern systems and cannot be retrofitted to introduce needed functionality or comply with regulatory changes. The personnel who have managed these systems are retiring, placing these services at even greater risk for instability or failure due to their age. In both instances, prior planning with clients and industry experts has moved to execution so that these systems can be entirely replaced with modern alternatives.

3. Significant Issues Coming to the Board

ISD does not anticipate any significant issues coming to the Board during the 2025 calendar year