Two-year agenda from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis makes digital service delivery a priority for state agencies

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis shared a new, two-year agenda on Tuesday, detailing how resources will be directed toward state departments to provide better digital service delivery for residents, among other priorities.

The Governor’s 2025-2027 Operational Agenda provides a new roadmap for state modernization efforts and is a combination of new initiatives and ongoing efforts from state leadership to improve residents’ access to state services and customer experience. According to a news release shared Dec. 31, the agenda has five core areas of focus in the coming years for state departments in charge of administering residents’ services: expanding digital services, improving customer support, workforce development, “greening government” and reducing the state government’s physical footprint.

The agenda builds on the Polis administration’s first six years of work, and includes the digital government strategic plan, one of the ongoing state efforts to improve service delivery mentioned in the agenda. It was debuted in 2022 to provide a blueprint for expanding access to high-speed internet and expanding online state services in Colorado.

Also featured in the agenda as a priority is reducing wait times and increasing efficiency of the state’s contact centers, which assist residents with services such as emergency rental assistance, applying for family and medical leave to care for a loved one or enrolling a child in the state’s universal preschool program. Call center executives will work with industry experts and other state department leaders to improve outcomes under priorities outlined in the agenda. 

Building on the state’s digital government strategic plan, the new agenda mentions eight key state departments that provide high-impact digital services, and which processes they will prioritize making digital or online in the coming years. These include the Office of Information Technology, which will be focusing on building a digital ID program and account sign-on for access to myColorado, the state’s official mobile app. The Department of Labor and Employment will focus on modernizing the application process for unemployment insurance and claiming family and medical leave, and the Department of Revenue will prioritize digitizing the process of filing taxes.

The eight state departments will work with OIT and the Colorado Digital Service, which will build the new digital products and services. The agenda also directs the Colorado Digital Service to work with the Governor’s Office of Operations on launching “communities of practice” for product managers and call center executives to increase access to training, analytics products and other technical support.

In July, Sarah Tuneberg was appointed to be the new director of the Colorado Digital Service, which was created in 2019 within the Governor’s Office of Information Technology. She told StateScoop in an interview shortly after her appointment that working through operational challenges to digital service delivery, like slow processing times for benefits applications, represent a significant opportunity for improvement across several state departments. 

In a news release announcing his administration’s two-year agenda, Polis said the state is “committed to making government more efficient, sustainable, and responsive to the needs of all Coloradans.” 

“This operational agenda outlines our goals and how we will achieve them,” he continued. “As we deliver on this agenda we will ensure Coloradans have access to high-quality services and leave our state better than we found it.”