Mayor Setti Warren has appointed Robert Barrett to be Newton’s first Chief Information Officer (CIO), Patch reports.
The CIO position was a recommendation from the city’s IT Advisory Committee, which was formed by Warren’s administration more than a year ago.
This is a wonderful catch for Newton! I’ve known Bob since we worked together at Index, about 30 years ago. I can’t imagine a more solid, qualified person for this job. I have huge respect for his talents in IT and business management.
“Robert will be leading my administration’s vision for a comprehensive IT strategy across city departments,” Warren said in the press release.
Sounds good so far — so if I look in the school organization budget, I won’t see a CIO or any related staff? If that’s the case — this is a huge gain
Ok, so I tried to find the answer… Typed in “school department budget” in the Newton city site — nada. Clicked on the Schools link on that site and was brought to a separate site. It wasn’t obvious on that site if finance information exists; school lunches, yes. Can we please take a “One City” approach at some point? My instinct says there is a c-level IT person over in that disconnected woods… Is there?
Hoss, the city bought a cheap app for its website called Civica. I use the city website all the time to find information I need for meetings or to answer questions for residents and I am very frustrated with the new website. I have complained about many of its shortcomings to the administration. The search function is terrible. My hope is that the new CIO can make it work. Residents shouldn’t have to go on a fishing expedition every time they want to find an important document on the government website.
The water/sewer billing software problems should be top priority. Conversion away from the ‘lean-over-the counter’ cityhall water dept. to an efficient electronic online format will provide a somewhat accountable ratepayer customer service. City is really in the hole to MWRA and the Band o’ 24 are not accepting responsibility for underwriting a meter/software replacement program flawed from the start.
sure Halls’ website needs major overhaul, but ‘la machine’ drawing from fear and emotionalism downdrafts dedicated to the $200 million structure have sucked financial resources – there looms a major over Hall, is Barrett the man?
Ted, I’m not sure if the website is the problem, our that we have two disconnected organizations — city/schools. Is there a CIO or equiv at the schools? (Hint to Mayor’s Office: “One City”!!)
Schock, I don’t know much about gov’t but I do know a few things about muni-systems where water billing is concerned. The muni systems are all inadequate compared to for-profit industry systems doing similar tasks. The same system that does water billing is what the police use in their cars and the library uses, etc… But the muni systems are workable and sophiscicated non-the-less. Some munis let us consumers see daily water use on-line. I asked the DPW about that recently… seems we are behind in that regard. Someone should make that a prioity because it’s low hanging fruit…. easy to implement, we’re probably already paying for it, and us taxpayers that care will find it very useful in discovering issues.