Pennsylvania Office of Administration

Cybersecurity and responsible AI aren't one agency's job. They're a shared one. Today, agency executive deputy secretaries and deputy secretaries for administration came to the Commonwealth Technology Center in Harrisburg to see the infrastructure behind Commonwealth technology firsthand, the Network Operations Center (NOC), the Enterprise Data Center, and other key systems that keep agencies running. NOC Manager Darrel Martin, Security Operations Lead Tom Zieders, and Data Center Manager Jason Peckham led the tour. Afterward, the group sat down with Chief Information Officer (CIO) Bryanna Pardoe and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Andy Ritter for an open conversation about where OA and agencies can go further together. CISO Ritter shared how the Shapiro Administration's investments in cybersecurity are helping keep critical systems and Pennsylvanians' data more secure. When agency leaders can see how the technology works and who keeps it running, the partnership gets stronger. That's how modern government gets built. #ResponsibleAI #Cybersecurity #ModernGovernment

Congratulations to Sara Hall, Executive Director of the Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience (CODE PA), named a 2026 RealLIST Innovator by Technical.ly. CODE PA's work shows up in places Pennsylvanians use every day. Bringing dozens of separate agency websites together into one pa.gov. Building PAyback, so residents and businesses can see how long a permit or license should take, and request their fee back if it takes longer. Rewriting forms and instructions in plain language so people can finish them without calling anyone. That work continues, and it continues because of leaders like Sara and the designers, researchers and engineers on her team. Congratulations, Sara. Recognition well earned 🎉 See full list: https://lnkd.in/emjhbVAd #CODEPA #DigitalGovernment #Pennsylvania

Meet the person building Pennsylvania's data and AI foundation. Priya Narasimhan joined our OA team on June 1 as our first Chief Data and AI Officer, a role that intentionally brings data and AI together under one leader, because you can't do responsible AI without well-governed data underneath it. Government Technology sat down with her this month. One phrase captures her approach: "fall in love with the problem." Start with the outcome, not the tool. Sometimes the answer is AI. Sometimes it's a different technology, a process change, or simply connecting the right people. That mindset is already showing up in practical places, catching blurry or incorrect documents before they turn into delays for residents, helping engineers make sense of legacy code ahead of migration, and making it easier for people to find an answer on a state website without digging through pages. Her measure of success isn't a framework or a strategy document. It's a Pennsylvanian who interacts with state government a year from now and finds that something just works a little better. That's modern government. And it's built by people like Priya. Read the full interview → https://lnkd.in/g4RWp6Sp #ModernGovernment #ResponsibleAI #PublicSectorAI #Pennsylvania #DataGovernance

Recruiting a data scientist into state government is hard. Keeping one is harder. Nearly 75% of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania fellows stay on as permanent employees after their fellowship ends. Today we welcomed the third cohort of the Governor's Science and Technology Fellowship. Eight master's- and doctorate-level STEM professionals joining agencies for a year of hands-on project work on animal disease diagnostics, AI literacy in workforce programs, data modernization, and more.   Since 2023, agencies have hosted 45 fellows across policy, legal, and STEM programs. This year we welcomed 962 interns, our largest cohort ever. Read the full announcement, including all eight fellowship projects and the agencies hosting them: https://lnkd.in/gUR-P5Qf Interested in a fellowship, apprenticeship, or internship? Visit Employment.pa.gov

1,350 former federal employees have chosen to continue their public service careers with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.   They're serving as corrections officer trainees, caseworkers, and nurses. In IT, science, law, engineering, and the skilled trades. Roles Pennsylvanians depend on every day.   Here's what made it possible ⤵️ In March 2025, Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order directing our office to recognize federal government experience as equivalent to Commonwealth experience. The directive was clear. The implementation was harder. Recognizing federal experience meant comparing thousands of job titles on both sides to find real matches, work that would have taken weeks or months to do by hand, at a moment when people needed an answer in weeks.   We used generative AI to run that analysis, with our HR experts reviewing and validating every match before it was applied. The technology made it fast. Our people made the call.   That's one piece of a broader effort. We've opened more roles to applicants without a four-year degree, launched new internship, apprenticeship, and fellowship programs, and stood up the HIRE Committee to keep improving how the Commonwealth recruits and retains talent. Earlier this year, our average time-to-hire reached an all-time low of 52 days, down from 90 at the start of this administration.   If you've built a career in federal service, your experience counts here.   Read the full announcement: https://lnkd.in/gGrTsXRA   #PublicService #Pennsylvania #Hiring #GovTech

Pennsylvania’s upcoming 2026-27 budget, which was signed last month by Gov. Josh Shapiro, adds millions of dollars for cybersecurity and digital services. The new funding is hoped to aid the governor’s mission of delivering “accessible, responsive, and secure technology that works for everyone,” according to Office of Administration Secretary Neil Weaver. https://lnkd.in/eEEN-Zm8

Most of the technology that keeps Pennsylvania running is invisible by design. For one day at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, we put it on a table and let people ask questions about it.   Our first annual IT Day in PA brought eighteen Commonwealth teams together to show their work, and the range was remarkable: → Platform to develop AI chatbots so agency staff find answers faster → Intelligent document processing cutting manual review time → Robotic process automation retiring repetitive work → Enterprise GIS powering emergency response and environmental mapping → Phishing simulation and zero trust security deployments hardening our defenses → Cloud cost optimization returning real dollars to the Commonwealth   None of this is technology for its own sake. Every project exists because someone found a slow process, an unmet need, or a service that wasn't working well enough for Pennsylvanians, and decided to fix it.   Secretary Neil R. Weaver opened the day with news from this year's budget: an additional $10 million for cybersecurity infrastructure, bringing the total added cyber investment to $30 million over three years, plus $3.7 million for CODE PA to continue modernizing permitting with DEP. That funding supports the security foundation every project depends on.   Thank you to Harrisburg University for hosting, and to every team that showed their work.   Full release on the budget's technology investments: https://lnkd.in/g6E_nkwH   #ITDayinPA #ModernGovernment #PublicSectorTechnology #PAGov

Most Pennsylvanians will never see us at work. But you feel it, every time an agency hires the right person faster, every time a license gets processed so a professional can get to work helping others, every time state government simply works the way it's supposed to.   That's what we do. We're the team behind the teams, building the people, processes, and technology that let every other Commonwealth agency serve Pennsylvanians well.   Today, we're introducing People Behind the Progress, a new series where we sit down with the OA employees doing that work, to share their stories and the impact they have across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.   Our first Commonwealth Champion is Miranda Martin Talent Management Director. In our conversation with her, Miranda opens up about her career journey, what keeps her motivated, and how her team's work, from time-to-hire to licensing, reaches far beyond OA and into the daily lives of Pennsylvanians.   🎬 See the impact Miranda and her team are making, watch below.   #PeopleBehindTheProgress #PACommonwealth #CommonwealthChampions #OATeam #PublicService