Building Collaborative, Mulit-Generational IT Team In Government

Danny Vera, Director of Information Technology, City of Edinburg

Danny Vera, Director of Information Technology, City of Edinburg, leads enterprise technology strategy and operations supporting critical municipal services and digital transformation. With a strong focus on cybersecurity, infrastructure modernization and community impact, he drives reliable scalable systems that enhance public service delivery and organizational performance.

Managing Technology for a City: Collaboration over Complexity

For me when working in a city environment, one of the most important IT leadership skills is collaboration. It enables us to bridge departments, deliver reliable services, whether its internal services or public services. Despite limited resources, collaboration helps maximize existing talent and resources which could also balance generational perspectives. City technology environments are uniquely complex when dealing with aging infrastructure, modern systems and multiple departments with competing priorities.

City IT doesn’t operate in isolation and no IT leader can do it all alone, when you are working to provide services. We all have Police, Fire, Emergency Management, Finance, HR departments with different needs. Being able to collaborate and build bridges between departments is critical in order to reach a successful outcome. This also allows us to communicate clearly across technical and non-technical audiences.

When building the IT Department, I took an intentional approach focused on diversity, bringing together individuals with different backgrounds, skill sets and experiences to form a stronger, more collaborative team. The doing more with less kind of approach. In local government, budgets rarely grow at the pace of demand which forces you to think outside the technical expertise and more about people and execution. Collaboration within the IT department is critical in order for all this to work.

Aligning IT with City Priorities: Collaboration turns Vision into Public Value

Collaboration plays a critical role in aligning IT strategy with leadership and community needs. It turns vision into operational reality. It allows leadership to understand the intent and need of IT strategies. Not only does it build trust with leadership allowing alignment and less obstacles, but builds trust across the city and delivers technology solutions. Collaboration allows you to ensure that technology remains and should be focused on serving the public and advancing the City’s mission.

Communities experience technology through services, not systems. Communities don’t see the behind the scenes, they see their experience with city services.

Smart IT Investment: Impact, Risk and Long-Term Value

When prioritizing IT initiatives, we take a public service impact, security risk and a fiscal responsibility. This is guided by collaboration and governance.

Public service impact, an evaluation is done on how it supports the City’s mission and does it improve service delivery to residents. A rule of thumb is, does it enhance reliability, safety or efficiency for City operations? Prioritizing on projects that directly support essential services is a must and those projects are raised to the top.

"Consistency is equally critical. Policies and procedures are ineffective without disciplined enforcement and clear governance. Without consistency, there is no real protection."

Risk, weight security and risk early is a must. Security is a non-negotiable factor is definitely not a later checkpoint. Initiatives that reduce risk or protect sensitive data are prioritized and projects are assessed for risk exposure before commitment. In local government managing risk is part of serving the public responsibly.

Fiscal responsibility must be taken into account, with limited resources a city must identify the total cost of ownership, long-term support and staffing requirements. In local government a solution that cannot be sustained over time should be approached differently.

Modernizing Legacy Systems: Progress without Disruption

The approach is simple, progress without disruption.

Usually legacy systems support critical services and are tied into many parts of a city. When modernizing these systems, we have to identify dependencies and risks. We would need to understand and identify what services depend on it (Payroll, Payables, Permitting, Billing, etc.).

What times are critical to the system, meaning peak times, payroll processing or billing processing, etc.

Who relies on it and gets them involved. Modernization is not an IT only project. We would need to identify what departments rely or can be key during the modernization. Many times, departments that rely on legacy systems have Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). There is a lot of knowledge that lives in SMEs or daily heavy users that is not in documentation and that can help make this easier. In other words, key departments and stakeholders need to be engaged early in the process.

Many times, these systems are customized over the years to fit a city. One of our legacy systems that was modernized was the ERP system. That system had customized configuration to fit the city for more than 12 years. I describe our city as a very unique city on how we do things. We need to understand all the moving pieces. When modernizing legacy systems I make sure that vendors know that upfront that they are aware of customization would be needed.

Legacy systems often pose a risk. We need to identify security risks and address them during modernization. Security is key from the start, but security should never slow modernization nor disrupt operations.

Citywide Cyber Defence: Governance First, Technology Second

Cybersecurity and data protection is not achieved through a single tool or policy. They require strong governance, cross-department collaboration and consistent execution. Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility and cannot reside within IT alone.

Collaboration builds trust with leadership and departments, enabling buy-in for necessary technology changes and security improvements. Educating both technical and nontechnical team is essential. Whenever new systems or policies are introduced–from data access adjustments to security implementations–we clearly communicate the purpose and impact.

Consistency is equally critical. Policies and procedures are ineffective without disciplined enforcement and clear governance. Without consistency, there is no real protection.

Focusing on awareness and training is the other approach. Technology does not stop incidents, people do. For me end users are the first line of defense when it comes to cybersecurity and data protection. Ongoing cybersecurity awareness for all staff is key and making sure that all users know the importance and reason for cybersecurity. A well informed environment is one of the strongest security measures a city can have.

And of course we introduced several centralized tools that allow visibility into the city’s infrastructure and provide consistent monitoring and response.

Advice for Future IT Leaders: Collaboration is the Advantage

My advice is simple: think outside the box and don’t try to do it alone. The most effective IT leaders understand how technology supports city services, value collaboration and keep the public needs at the center of every decision.

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