The Department of Technology Services (DTS) acts as Utah's central service provider for information technology (IT) related activities. While the Legislature appropriates a part of the DTS budget, the other part is financed by billing customer agencies. This chapter addresses that latter portion of DTS, the Internal Service Fund (ISF) portion.
Internal Service Funds employ business practices to provide a service or product for other state and governmental agencies. They take advantage of economies of scale, avoid duplication of efforts, and provide an accounting mechanism to adequately identify costs of certain governmental services.
During the 2015 General Session, the Legislature appropriated for Fiscal Year 2016, $180,358,700 from all sources for ISF - Technology Services. This is a 1.1 percent increase from Fiscal Year 2015 revised estimated amounts from all sources.
The following statutes govern the Department of Technology Services Internal Service Fund:
- UCA 63F-1-103 creates the Department of Technology Services and gives DTS authority to operate as an internal service fund
- UCA 63F-1-301 creates an Information Technology Rate Committee that reviews and approves all rates before they are charged by DTS. The rate committee forwards such rates to the Legislature for final authorization
- UCA 63J-1-410, the "Budgetary Procedures Act," defines internal service funds and sets guidelines for their operations
In order to control the size, mission, and fees charged to state agencies, the Legislature imposed statutory controls ( UCA 63J-1-410 ) that require ISFs to respond to the legislative budget process. No ISF can bill another agency for its services unless the Legislature has: approved the ISF's FTE, capital acquisitions, rates, fees, and other charges; published the annual rates and fees in an appropriations act; and appropriated the ISF's estimated annual revenue.
To eliminate negative working capital, an ISF may borrow from the General Fund as long as the debt is repaid over the useful life of the asset, and the deficit working capital is not greater than ninety percent of the value of the ISF's fixed assets.
COBI contains unaudited data as presented to the Legislature by state agencies at the time of publication. For audited financial data see the State of Utah's Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports.