Evelyn Broussard, the state chief information officer, told the Louisiana Senate Finance Committee on April 15 that OTS will begin quarterly inventories of agency devices and pursue contract changes to lower costs and hold vendors accountable.

"We're going to gain a bunch of efficiencies by doing that," Broussard said, describing a planned quarterly review to match devices to users and reduce unnecessary hardware and telecom charges. She said OTS is working with "LA DOSE" to identify savings in agency requests.

The statement came during opening testimony from Patrick Goles, Deputy Commissioner of Administration, who introduced Broussard and stressed that most of OTS's roughly $670,000,000 budget is pass-through spending rather than revenue retained by OTS. "We don't make a profit. We can't make a profit," Goles said, asking the committee to view OTS as a purchasing and advisory function for state agencies.

Nut graf: Committee members pressed OTS on how requests from agencies will be checked and on contract oversight. Broussard and Matthew Benson, deputy CIO, described measures including quarterly device and telecom audits, templates to reproduce reports each quarter, hardware lifecycle management and efforts to insert stronger performance and clawback language in vendor agreements.

Most urgent details
- Inventory and quarterly reviews: Broussard said OTS will survey agencies to reconcile device counts to staff and identify excess printers, desktop phones and cell lines. She gave an example framework: compare numbers of devices to people in each unit and reduce excess.
- Mainframe transition: Broussard said the state is seeking a cloud-based replacement for a mainframe in production since the 1970s. In the near term OTS is performing hardware upgrades and expects a multi-year replacement project.
- Contracts and vendor accountability: Broussard and Goles said the administration intends to insert stronger enforcement provisions in contracts and pursue renegotiations that could lower state rates, including use of an outside contractor to test renegotiation approaches.
- Print shop line item: Broussard said roughly $40,000,000 in the OTS budget funds a state print shop, which she said results in lower per-piece costs for mailed materials.

Committee questions and staff clarifications
- Senator Presley and others sought to confirm whether agencies or OTS would carry primary responsibility for device counts and purchases. Broussard said agencies will submit budget requests directly in future cycles and OTS will act more as an advisor and verifier. She said this should increase ownership and accountability at the agency level.
- Senator Abraham asked how the OTS budget has trended. Deputy CIO Matthew Benson said OTS spending is demand-driven: when agencies receive federal grants or undertake modernization projects, the pass-through totals rise. Benson said unit rates (for storage, servers, cloud) have trended down while utilization has increased, which can raise the absolute dollar total.
- Procurement timing and contract renewals: Broussard said timing varies by contract size; large, high‑impact procurements may be reviewed a year or more in advance and some RFP processes can take 18 months or longer under current rules.

What OTS will track and report
Broussard described a phased approach: devices first, then telecom lines and cellular accounts, and then broader contract reviews. She said OTS will create a repeatable template for quarterly reporting of devices and contracts so the state can replicate the process and maintain oversight.

Ending: Committee members welcomed the new CIO and offered assistance. Multiple senators said they want periodic updates; Broussard and Goles agreed to continue communicating with the committee as the work progresses.