Authority board hears IT separation plan and a roughly $14 million year‑one technology budget

The Metropolitan Public Transportation Authority board on Wednesday received a detailed presentation on separating the authority’s information technology from the City and building an independent, resilient IT environment. Rachel Gragg, the authority’s head of technology, said the plan aims to deliver authority credentials for employees by Jan. 1, 2027, migrate core applications and data into a cloud environment within 12 months, and complete a full business‑continuity environment within 18 months.

The presentation, delivered with vendor partners from WWT, outlined the work in six technology domains — cybersecurity, digital workplace, applications, data, servers/storage and networking — and emphasized procurement timelines and supplier‑diversity goals. Gragg said the team’s year‑one estimate for hardware and software investments is around $14 million, with additional implementation and support costs to be refined as procurement schedules and vendor pricing firm up.

Board members asked how the $14 million estimate fits into the FY‑27 budget and how minority‑owned and small businesses would be included in procurements. Staff said the amount is already budgeted for the relevant fiscal year and that future contracts for managed services and implementation will follow federal and local procurement rules, with small‑business and minority‑business goals set depending on funding sources.

Trustees pressed on enforcement of timelines and futureproofing. Presenters said the workplan uses a three‑milestone approach (identity provisioning, cloud migration, resilient environment) and will rely heavily on procurement execution to meet deadlines; cloud and on‑prem redundancy are planned to address scalability and supply‑chain risk.

The board received the IT plan as information and directed staff to proceed with procurement planning and committee review of implementation timelines. The presentation materials included cost assumptions and milestone dates; staff said the final procurement and contract awards will return to the committees and board for approval as required.

The presentation flagged additional costs and procurement details as still under development; the transcript contains some unclear numeric breakdowns in the microtransit section that staff said they will clarify in the posted meeting materials. The board’s next steps include committee review of procurement scopes and an ongoing emphasis on supplier‑diversity goals tied to each procurement.