California’s tech problems persist – Orange County Register

In what has become much of a New Year’s tradition in California, the state’s FI$Cal project missed another deadline.

A new report by the California state auditor tracking “substantial concerns” about the development and implementation of a Financial Information System for California, cutely named FI$Cal, was initiated in 2005. The project is supposed to develop a comprehensive budget system that will connect to the information technology system used by the government and other government agencies. In 2006, the state said FI$Cal would combine accounting, budgeting, cash management, procurement, and many other California systems into one modern, unified system.

Deadlines for completion are repeatedly missed, most recently in July 2016, July 2017, July 2019 and June 2020.

The latest Special Projects Report (SPR) issued by state projects says the cost will be more than $960 million, and extends the project’s official end date to June 2022.

However, the audit office warned the governor and the Legislature in its latest report that “the Project Office will not complete the project by the expected end date of June 2022.” An important step requires the Office of the State Comptroller to compare data from FI$Cal with data in the state legacy system to verify that the comprehensive financial data provided by FI$Cal is accurate. corpse. “This verification process has been behind schedule,” the auditors reported, “and the project office has not released a new schedule as of December 2021.”

In addition, FI$Cal Department will have to ensure that it has the staff and resources to operate the system following the transition from staff and supplier resources. “The department may find it difficult to successfully manage this transition,” the auditors said, given that “the project has experienced a vacancy rate of more than 15% over the past five years.”

The FI$Cal project has been scaled back, removing many of the promised features and key functionalities, such as a statewide loan accounting system. As a result, the state will continue to use legacy systems even after FI$Cal is completed, which defeats one of the original purposes of today’s multi-billion dollar project — to replace multiple state legacy systems with a single, modern integrated system.

The boondoggle energy gets stronger in this project with each new contract awarded to do it. In June 2021, two new contracts were approved to implement deferred features, and these were extended through December 2022 at a total cost to taxpayers of $6 million. la. But there is no schedule for the development of the deferred features yet. The contracts demonstrate that “the division will incur significant costs associated with the development of FI$Cal long after the official project closing date.”

This will also cost taxpayers in other ways. The state’s inability to meet deadlines for accurate financial statements could affect financial markets’ view of the state’s debt and could lead to higher borrowing costs for projects such as schools and infrastructure. Some federal funding may be at risk if state financial reports are delayed or inaccurate.

Auditors have designated FI$Cal as one of the “high-risk” programs that need more oversight and careful oversight. The list of state programs that receive more scrutiny for potential waste, fraud, and abuse is long. And a long-promised tool to monitor state spending remains unfinished.