Deputy Commissioner Sarah Stolt of the Department of Health and Human Services told the Appropriations - Human Resources Division that the department is requesting $15,000,000 to remediate "technical debt" — legacy software and systems tied to the state mainframe — and to migrate data and processes off unsupported platforms.

"When we're talking about technical debt, we're not we're not talking about the laptops that you touch and feel, we're not talking about a mouse or a keyboard," Stolt said. "We're talking about the 2 31 applications that are needed to deliver core services to the people of North Dakota." She said the $15 million request targets 27 applications the department considers legacy systems and a larger set of processes and integrations that must be rebuilt or retired.

Committee members pressed Stolt and state IT officials for specifics about what the money would buy, how fast the work could proceed, and whether the funds would be one-time or ongoing. Stolt described the request as largely cleanup of deferred work that should have been budgeted when new systems were procured. She said some retirements will be funded from a mix of federal funds and special funds and that detailed project plans are in progress so work can start July 1 if the appropriation is approved.

Stolt gave examples of legacy systems the department has identified for retirement: the eligibility-era systems called text and vision, electronic health-record legacy systems (referred to as ropes and aims), and a pre-MMIS Medicaid legacy system. She said some retirements carry dedicated federal or special-fund components and that the governor’s package includes specific decision packages tied to those efforts, including a $10,000,000 lump-sum item to address the many processes hooked to the mainframe.

Representative Murphy asked whether the work would take three to five years. Stolt said three to five years is a common timeline for large IT replacements because of solicitation, federal approvals for funding and RFP work — not because developers must spend that entire time coding. "3 to 5 years isn't necessarily that we've got, you know, developers, architects, data governance people doing work every single day... That is the 3 to 5 years," she said.

Craig Falkely, chief technology officer at the North Dakota Information Technology (NDIT), told the committee NDIT and HHS are "moving as fast as we possibly can" to retire mainframe dependencies and that HHS is the primary remaining mainframe customer along with DOT. Falkely said NDIT will leverage vendors to accelerate work in the coming biennium.

The panel also discussed the cost of doing nothing. Stolt said the state currently spends about $9,000,000 per biennium on the mainframe and that cost will rise the longer systems remain. She warned of security risks tied to unsupported systems (for example, lack of multifactor authentication on some mainframe components), rising maintenance costs and the risk that vendors or staff able to maintain antiquated platforms will become impossible to find.

Lawmakers asked for additional documentation. Stolt and NDIT staff agreed to provide operation- and cost-level sheets showing prior program spending and the portion that went to NDIT or to vendors. Stolt cited total costs previously spent on the department’s integrated eligibility system ("spaces") of roughly $345,000,000 since 2011, and attributed about $25,000,000 of that to NDIT work, about $175,000,000 to system development/implementation, and about $145,000,000 to vendor maintenance and operations. She said the MMIS program total cited in committee was $297,000,000 since its start but did not provide a clear single-dollar breakdown for NDIT vs. vendor share in that figure during the hearing.

Committee members asked whether enterprise prioritization across agencies has improved. Stolt described recent governance changes — an architecture advisory committee, a data advisory committee and a customer advisory council — intended to help set enterprise priorities and reduce a "paint-splatter" approach to NDIT work. NDIT officials said the state has moved toward including NDIT project costs (project managers, architects and data experts) in total project estimates more consistently over the last two to three years.

No formal vote or appropriation occurred in the meeting. Committee members asked for follow-up documents, and NDIT officials said they would present the same material to the full appropriations committee after crossover. The department committed to providing detailed sheets and an inventory of affected applications and integrations.