(a) The legislature finds that:
(1) information and information resources possessed by agencies of state government are strategic assets belonging to the residents of this state that must be managed as valuable state resources;
(2) technological and theoretical advances in information use are recent in origin, immense in scope and complexity, and growing at a rapid pace;
(3) the nature of these advances presents this state with the opportunity to provide higher quality, more timely, and more cost-effective governmental services;
(4) the danger exists that state agencies could independently acquire uncoordinated and duplicative information resources technologies that are more appropriately acquired as part of a coordinated effort for maximum cost-effectiveness and use;
(5) the sharing of information resources technologies among state agencies is often the most cost-effective method of providing the highest quality and most timely governmental services that otherwise would be cost prohibitive;
(6) both considerations of cost and the need for the transfer of information among the various agencies and branches of state government in the most timely and useful form possible require a uniform policy and coordinated system for the use and acquisition of information resources technologies;
(7) considerations of cost and expertise require that, to the extent possible, the planning and coordinating functions reside in a separate agency from the purchasing function; and
(8) the need of officials in the executive branch of state government to have timely access to all needed information in a form most useful to them in their execution of the laws and the need of members of the legislative branch of state government to have timely access to all needed information in a form most useful to them in their evaluation of the practical effect of the laws and in their identification of areas in which legislation is needed for the future are equally paramount, requiring the greatest possible continuous and formal coordination and cooperation within and among the branches of state government.
(b) It is the policy of this state to coordinate and direct the use of information resources technologies by state agencies and to provide as soon as possible the most cost-effective and useful retrieval and exchange of information within and among the various agencies and branches of state government and from the agencies and branches of state government to the residents of this state and their elected representatives. The Department of Information Resources exists for these purposes.