COT consists of five units: Commissioner, Chief Information Security Officer, Architecture and Governance, Infrastructure Services, and Client Support Services.
The Commissioner's Office is responsible for developing strategies and policies to promote the effective application of information technology within state government as a means of saving money, increasing efficiency and employee productivity, and improving services to the public, including electronic access to information of the Commonwealth.
The Chief Information Security Officer manages security, access and acceptable use policies for all COT functions. As more and more of the Commonwealth's mission-critical applications go on-line, their potential exposure to malicious activity increases. In addition to maintaining the physical security of the Commonwealth Data Center and other COT facilities, the Security Office develops and maintains the disaster recovery business continuity plan.
The Office of Architecture and Governance is responsible for providing comprehensive application development services. These services are provided upon request to Commonwealth agencies and adhere to the structure of the Office's system development lifecycle process that follows industry best practices for software development.
The Office of Infrastructure Services is responsible for operation of the Commonwealth enterprise computing and communications environment. The office offers day-to-day technical support and operation of Executive Branch IT resources and operates the Commonwealth Data Center. This includes oversight of shared IT infrastructure resources and services, including large-scale computing, server hosting, IT security, data and voice communications networks, and phone systems.
The Office of Client Support Services provides frontline customer support, asset management, and monitoring of the Commonwealth's infrastructure and application availability.
In the Commonwealth Office of Technology operates as an internal service fund agency with budgetary support derived through the application of a federally-approved cost allocation plan, which distributes costs to user agencies based upon utilization of services. The rate schedule by which COT bills agencies for IT services is reviewed annually and adjusted as necessary to accurately reflect actual cost. By consolidating infrastructure services and purchases of equipment and software licenses, COT is able to provide many basic services at very competitive rates.
Policy
Additional Restricted Funds in the amount of $775,000 each fiscal year are included to support the requirements of KRS 42.731, which was effective March 24, 2025. The law added new duties to COT surrounding governance over the use of artificial intelligence by state government agencies.
The Governor's budget includes additional Restricted Fund spending of $2,500,000 in each fiscal year to procure and implement Citizen Identity software to provide secure and seamless digital services to the public.
Additional spending in the area of cybersecurity is included in the amount of $625,800 in fiscal year 2027 and $1,719,100 in fiscal year 2028 from Restricted Funds. Funds will be invested in key areas such as email integrity, data classification, directory resilience, and incident response and training.
The Governor's budget includes additional funding in the amount of $540,300 in fiscal year 2027 and $1,109,800 in fiscal year 2028 to fund a 2% salary increment in fiscal year 2027 and an additional 2% increment in fiscal year 2028.
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