Administrative Services

The Administrative Services Division provides administrative support to the programs of the Department in the areas of fiscal, personnel/payroll, grants and contracts, facilities management, information technology, telecommunications and shipping. Support is also provided to the Commissioner's Office and the Management Team in formulating and implementing the policies, procedures and plans of the Department in accordance with KRS 171.125-306 and 171.410-740. In addition, this division provides administrative support to the Commission on Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Environmental Education Council.

Many, if not all, of the Innovation and Technology initiatives described below are enabled by an ever-expanding and developing technology infrastructure of wires, fiber-optic cables, a multitude of hardware devices and a plethora of software. While not as important as KDLA’s people, all of these components are brought together, managed and supported by a dedicated staff of technologists, along with the help of many volunteers throughout the agency, to provide the technological base that supports and enables the work of the people of KDLA.

KDLA has implemented the first installation of Voice over IP (Internet Protocol, or VoIP) voice communications technology in Kentucky state government. The project was a replacement of KDLA’s entire telephone system with the newer technology of Voice over IP, as a joint pilot project between KDLA and the Commonwealth Office of Technology. A redesign and rebuild of the KDLA data network was the first step in the project, and implementation has been successful. At this writing, testing of the technology is occurring at “remote” locations of the agency, including Regional Offices, Records Centers and telecommuter locations, in order to extend the benefits of the central office telephone system to these locations. The technology evolves voice communication services onto the data network, allowing for easier management and administration of one integrated network. Voice over IP also provides the foundation for the integration of voice communication with data applications, with the promise of enhancing customer service offerings of the agency.

KDLA has implemented a leading-edge technology in computer data storage systems, based on technology developed by MaXXan Systems. This technology provides KDLA the capability to infinitely expand its electronic information storage space in a way that is completely transparent to the servers and applications that access the data. By so doing, KDLA was able to reuse its existing investment in disk storage hardware, integrating that hardware into a new environment that will address the need for ever-expanding information storage requirements, to better serve its customers statewide. Many of the technology initiatives described in this report rely upon the availability of boundless electronic data storage capacity for their success.