State IT and Human Services officials endorse benefits portal concept but flag governance and data-sharing risks

Christine Sekuda, the state chief information officer at the Office of Enterprise Technology Services (ETS), told the committee the Hawaii Benefits Hub concept has significant potential to streamline access to benefit programs but identified complex operational and policy challenges. ETS provides enterprise IT governance, cybersecurity standards and data-sharing guidelines and urged tight alignment between technology capabilities and service delivery needs.

Scott Morishige of the Department of Human Services said DHS stands on written comments and would defer to ETS on technical matters but noted the department is available for questions. Discussion with committee members centered on whether departments create memoranda of agreement (MOA) or memoranda of understanding (MOU) with ETS, and how enterprise-level standards and shared vendor arrangements would be implemented.

Members asked ETS to clarify when ETS would host portals, when departments would retain data-sharing control, and how MOUs would be structured; ETS said answers depend on use cases but emphasized a role for common standards and for joint data-sharing agreements tailored to program needs.