Kansas CIO stepping down later this month
Kansas Chief Information Technology Officer Anthony Schlinsog is leaving state government to take a private sector job in the state, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported from a state government official.
Schlinsog has served as the state’s CIO since November 2011 and led a 600-person staff that oversaw a more than $150 million state technology budget. Schlinsog’s last day will be Oct. 18.
Before serving as state CIO, Schlinsog was CIO of the state’s department of transportation.
Prior to his state service, Schlinsog served as manager of data development and informatics for the Child Health Corporation of America where he managed data quality and content development projects for the Pediatric Health Information System, the nation’s largest un-blinded clinical pediatric data warehouse.
He also held numerous technology roles at the Government Employees Health Association, a large national health insurer headquartered outside Kansas City, Mo., including manager of client services development, project manager, senior applications developer and analyst.
In a letter to Gov. Sam Brownback (R), Schlinsog said that he had viewed the state job as rewarding and that the division was making strides in consolidating operations and reducing costs.
Schlinsog effectively served as the state’s first overarching CIO, a position Brownback created in 2011 to give more structure to the state’s internal technology operations. Brownback originally selected Jim Mann for the position, but he quickly resigned after discrepancies in his education background surfaced. Schlinsog stepped in as his immediate successor.
It is likely that the state will not name a new state CIO for at least a few months. Brownback is facing re-election for his governorship and is in the middle of a close race with Democratic challenger Paul Davis that the political tracking site Real Clear Politics has listed as a toss up less than a month until election day.
As state CIOs tend to be tied to the governor, Brownback will likely not select a replacement until he wins re-election. If he loses, that decision would fall to Davis as he builds out his new administration.
