IT upgrades for Minnesota counties could be on way under bill headed to House Floor

“I think this is, for me, the most important bill that I’ve been involved with this year.”

So said Rep. Paul Torkelson (R-Hanska) of HF4808, which was approved, as amended, by the House Ways and Means Committee Thursday morning and is on its way to the House Floor.

After hearing for years of the primitive technology that county human services providers are forced to use — and the resultant narrow margin for error in processing payments and paperwork for county residents — Torkelson is sponsoring a human services information technology modernization package that includes $75 million in funding for Fiscal Year 2027.

That total includes $15 million for fraud prevention and detection, $10 million for county IT priorities, and $11.4 million for future IT.

“We are tremendously dependent on these technology systems to administer the programs that we as a Legislature pass,” Torkelson said. “When the system is inefficient and workers are frustrated with their jobs, those folks aren’t getting the services that we intend for them to get.”

“This bill has high short-term impact,” said Matt Hilgart, deputy director of government relations for the Association of Minnesota Counties. “And it’s critically needed. We need to act now, not just plan for modernization in the future.”

Urgency to upgrade the county human services systems — which have earned the nickname, “Oregon Trail technology,” after a 20th-century video game — has grown with federal mandates signed into law last year requiring states to increase their oversight of human services programs. In Minnesota, those tasks fall to the counties.

The bill would establish a new state fund to modernize the IT systems used by state agencies, counties and tribal nations to administer human services programs. Before spending money appropriated by the Legislature from this new fund, the Department of Human Services, Department of Children, Youth, and Families, and Minnesota IT Services would be required to consult a new advisory council created by the bill.

The bill would also appropriate money for certain priority county and agency IT modernization projects, establish a bicameral legislative commission to oversee human services system modernization, and require Minnesota Management and Budget to transfer money to the new fund under certain circumstances.

While Rep. Peggy Scott (R-Andover) said that she’d like to see more audit features built into the bill, she supports it, as does Rep. Jim Nash (R-Waconia), who said, “Nerds win in the end, and, here we are, nerds are winning.”

Rep. Mohamud Noor (DFL-Mpls) underlined the bill’s importance for improving human services in the state and for taking a long-term approach, in that oversight is required from an advisory council entrusted with continually modernizing the existing systems, as well as a legislative commission.

“This changes the ecosystem for technology,” Noor said. “We have a seed that’s already been planted. It’s up to us to make sure that we grow that seed.”