If you've always thought of the IT department as critical to an organization's survival, you may be dismayed to learn that Minnesota considers a hefty percentage of its own IT workers optional. When the state shut its government down July 1, it sent home 75 percent of the 380 employees in the Office of Enterprise Technology, reports Patrick Thibodeau at Computerworld.

There are 1800 IT workers in the state's executive branch, including OET, and it isn't clear how many have been furloughed altogether. Those who run critical applications, such as unemployment insurance and a the ERP system, are still on the job, but otherwise the IT staffing is "minimal," according to Cathy de Moll, director of planning, communications and marketing in the technology office.

The technology office is in charge of networks, security, applications, communications, desktops, data centers, the Internet and services. During the shutdown, IT generally will not be involved in upgrading or patching non-critical applications and services, leading some to anticipate problems if the state's budget impasse becomes protracted.

"OET is doing emergency patching only for those services that are considered critical, plus some security patching to the major state systems and networks," said de Moll. "We cannot predict the impact of a prolonged shutdown on these non-critical systems, but expect that without the usual upgrades and maintenance, we may encounter some difficulties as time goes on."

For more:
- see Patrick Thibodeau's article at Computerworld

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