The announcement came from the Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet, on its LinkedIn page. Officials with the state could not immediately be reached Wednesday for further comment.
“Today we are announcing Ruth Day, the Chief Information Officer at the Commonwealth Office of Technology, will retire on Dec. 31. We thank Ruth for her exceptional service and wish her well in her next chapter,” the LinkedIn post reads.
Day, a certified public accountant, moved into the cabinet-level position in the Commonwealth Office of Technology (COT) in late 2019 — chosen by Gov. Beshear at the start of his first term. Prior to her role in state government, Day served as the vice president for administrative services at Landstar System Inc., a transportation services company focused on logistics.
Beshear said then, at a press conference announcing his cabinet, he believed the state had “significant and serious problems both in the office and its provision of services to our cabinets.” He charged Day with delivering a “macro-level analysis” of the state’s IT position and how that should evolve.
Just as Day was getting settled in to life in capital city Frankfort five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic upended life across the state. The still-new CIO helped to facilitate the adoption of online meeting platforms and other essentials to operating state government during a time of crisis. She also helped shepherd the KentuckyWired program, a state project to deploy high-speed fiber-optic infrastructure to every Kentucky county.
Consistently earning recognition during her tenure in the Digital States Survey from the Center for Digital Government*, COT this year took on implementation of a master data management system for streamlined statewide data governance, while aiming to increase operational transparency by internal process improvements to open records access. Upgrades to the state’s wired infrastructure and its legacy systems have been in the works, along with an updated social assistance management system for the Kentucky Department for Community Based Services.
*The Center for Digital Government is part of e.Republic, Government Technology’s parent company.
