It’s understandable that state lawmakers want to get a handle on what is being spent on information technology in each state department. But is it really necessary to spend $150,000 for a private company to perform work that should have been done years ago by the state Office of Information Management and Technology?

The state auditor has awarded the $150,000 contract to Accuity LLP to review and compile IT expenditures in all state departments over the past four years. Lawmakers ordered the audit under Senate Concurrent Resolution 162, which observed that the state’s information technology infrastructure is “both dilapidated and decentralized.”

There is no question such an audit is necessary. The list of IT projects that have devoured millions of state dollars but yielded few results continues to grow: the state Department of Transportation’s “FAST” project, in which $13.88 million was spent on a defunct system before the project was canceled in March; the Department of Taxation’s faulty $87.5 million computerized tax system that was outdated at completion and already needs replacing.

Lawmakers would be hard-pressed to make educated funding decisions without knowing the current state and future needs of IT within the departments. But what does it say about the confidence lawmakers have in the Office of Information Management and Technology when they want another source to complete the audit? Even the OIMT testified in favor of the audit because it lacks the proper resources to complete the project, said OIMT spokesman Keith DeMello.

The resolution calling for the inventory of computer project notes that OIMT is already working with state agencies to compile an accurate “information technology investment portfolio” for the executive branch, but lawmakers decided not to wait.

Few resources and the complexities of pinpointing the amounts being spent on IT in each department have delayed completion of the assessment, DeMello said. “Not everything is spelled out as an IT expenditure,” he said, noting the “different colors of money” used for IT projects that include grants and federal dollars.

Even before OIMT hired its first chief information officer in 2011, then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie said that OIMT had begun an assessment to provide an overview of technology across the state. OIMT selected Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a Fortune 500 company with experience transforming, transitioning and improving IT environments for federal and state governments, to lead this assessment. It’s appalling that four years later, things have not advanced.

In canceling the FAST project, which started under the Abercrombie administration, Gov. David Ige lamented the state’s inability to implement IT projects in an efficient manner. His administration faces an uphill climb, given the years of wasted effort and dollars that have failed to significantly modernize operations.

Today, small steps, not big ones, are being taken. For instance, Ige on Thursday launched a state effort to go paperless with a system allowing for electronic signatures. The governor’s office has instructed departments to submit documents using an electronic routing form template and signed documents will be returned to departments via email.

Clearly, though, the state’s overall IT system needs improvement, so getting a clearer picture of departmental IT spending and projects is a key endeavor. But it’s one that should have been completed years ago, and it should not have reached the point where more state dollars are being paid to a private company to do something a state office was tasked to do.