On Tuesday, State Auditor Elaine Howle released her latest status report on the Fi$CAL project which says 22 percent of its positions are vacant, as of November 2012.
Spokesman Al Lundeen says the project is actively recruiting to fill positions, including the leadership role of Technology Deputy Director, a position currently held by David Duarte who is on temporary loan from CalPERS. Duarte will leave Fi$CAL at the end of January.
“We recognize and share the staffing concerns expressed by the State Auditor’s Office, though we believe the vacancy rate is somewhat overstated because six positions were not authorized until October and eight positions were not authorized until November,” said Project Executive Barbara Taylor in a statement. “We can report a steady increase in hiring and continue to pursue highly-skilled candidates with knowledge and experience specific to the FI$Cal solution. These individuals will help us deliver a state-of-the-art integrated financial management system for California.”
Last month, the project hired Administration Deputy Director Jennifer Byington from the state Department of Justice.
Fi$CAL has had difficulty recruiting from the state’s SROA list, which can be time consuming and lack qualified candidates, according to project oversight. The project needs staff with specialized skills and knowledge of the enterprise software used by the system integrator, the report said. A blanket request for an exemption from the SROA process, which helps prevent layoffs from state service, was denied in July 2012 by CalHR.
The auditor also reported that data conversion was a risk factor with 2,200 legacy applications that need to be converted. However, the report noted that the project has made some progress with data management. Fi$CAL started the legacy systems and data analysis subproject in March 2012.
