Clackamas County

Linu Parappilly is Chief Information Officer for Clackamas County, Oregon CIO of the year  award, leading enterprise technology strategy, digital transformation, cybersecurity and innovation to improve public services. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, she is known for aligning technology with organizational strategy through inclusive, people-first leadership.

Every public-sector technology leader knows this scenario.

A legacy application runs on an outdated platform. A critical system cannot be upgraded because of a vendor dependency. The team is overloaded. The business has more urgent priorities. And when IT raises the issue, the first question is usually, "How much will this cost?"

Technical debt is often treated as something we'll address when we have more funding or time.

In government, that time rarely comes.

For years, I wrestled with what felt like an impossible equation. Technical debt kept growing. Budgets covered operations but left little room for modernization. Teams were stretched thin, yet expectations never changed: secure our systems, keep pace with technology and continue to innovate.

I had been treating technical debt, modernization, innovation and workforce development as separate initiatives competing for the same limited resources.

But they weren't. They could become one strategy.

Once I connected those initiatives, every investment delivered more value.

That realization fundamentally changed how I approach IT strategy. Today, I use technical debt to modernize systems, develop staff, reduce business risk and introduce emerging technologies through the same investment.

Shift the Conversation

The biggest shift in my thinking was realizing technical debt isn't an IT problem. It's a business risk.

Technical debt is the accumulated impact of years of competing priorities and limited budgets. Over time, it shows up as security vulnerabilities, fragile systems, rising costs, slower delivery and sometimes a mission-critical application supported by a single employee.

Executives rarely invest because the server is old. They invest when they understand what that aging server puts at risk.

That's when executives start listening.

Don't Fix Everything. Fix What Matters.

Early in my career, I believed the answer was to inventory every technical debt issue.

Instead, we developed a Technology Fitness Assessment that evaluated applications using business value, technical health, cost, risk and supportability. Frameworks such as Gartner's TIME model helped organize the discussion, but the real question was simpler:

Which investments reduce the most risk while creating the greatest opportunity?

Sometimes the answer was modernization or retirement. Increasingly, it became an opportunity to redesign solutions using automation or AI instead of simply replacing what already existed.

Build Capacity Without Waiting for More Budget

No single team was ever going to solve technical debt.

So, I stopped treating it as a standalone initiative.

Some projects became part of departmental roadmaps, while others went to dedicated technical debt and innovation teams, where legacy systems became candidates for emerging technologies. We partnered with universities, giving students real-world experience while building future talent.

More importantly, we stopped asking, "How do we upgrade this system?" and started asking, "How can this investment solve multiple problems?" That shift turned modernization projects into opportunities to reduce risk, build skills, introduce emerging technologies and create future capacity for innovation.

The results extended well beyond technical debt: stronger cybersecurity, modernized systems, expanded capacity and a culture of innovation.

The best public-sector investments solve multiple problems at once.

Let Results Build the Business Case

Like most public organizations, we didn't begin with a large modernization budget.

We started with one-time funding, a few contractors and projects that demonstrated measurable value. We started small, partnered with the business and reinvested the results. Those results eventually justified permanent positions.

I learned to measure success not by systems upgraded, but by value created: risk reduced, services protected, manual effort eliminated and new capabilities delivered.

Make Technical Debt Part of How You Operate

Technical debt isn't something you eliminate.

It's something you continuously manage.

We embedded it into application lifecycle management, strategic planning, enterprise architecture, portfolio governance and technology roadmaps. Every new system entered production with the expectation that it would be reviewed throughout its lifecycle, not simply maintained until it became obsolete. Over time, technical debt stopped being a project.

It became part of how we operate.

The Opportunity in Technical Debt

Public-sector IT will always have more demand than resources.

I've come to see technical debt as the catalyst for smarter innovation.

Every modernization effort is an opportunity to automate, simplify, develop people, strengthen cybersecurity and deliver better public services.

Technical debt doesn't have to compete with innovation. Handled deliberately, it becomes the engine that drives it.

Dream big. Start small. Iterate. It's the philosophy that has guided my career and the advice I continue to share.

Every public-sector CIO eventually asks the same question: "How are we going to modernize with the resources we have?"

I've learned the answer isn't always more money. It's seeing technical debt differently.

Don't ask, "How do we fix this?"

Ask instead, "What opportunity does this problem create?"