Collaboration, training and widespread adoption by the users of a $500 million IT project are the basis for a CalPERS program being nominated for an award by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO).
Working with more than 3000 business partners and 8000 staff, the Public Employer Readiness Team (PERT) spent 18 months in a parallel effort as “my|CalPERS” was launched in September, 2011 as state’s new public employee data system, according to state documents. PERT surveyed employers and conducted demonstrations of the new network, while also offering early adoption and elective training courses for the business partners.
Health and retirement benefits are paid through CalPERS, but the complex regulations required more than 100 different systems to record data on 1.6 million California public employees and retirees.
The My|CalPERS million system replaced 49 legacy systems, including 90 separate databases, with a web-based platform to give CalPERS staff a full, integrated view of customer data. Converting 3.2 billion CalPERS records and more than 2 million lines of code from its old databases took two weeks. The new system allows the agency to better track everything from dental benefits to death certificates, and hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions from employers and employees.
The launch was not without some problems, with a temporary backlog of transactions that had developed after the two-week data conversion period. However the implementation far exceeded CalPERS’ expectations as the agency transitioned away from the 40-year old systems, spokesman Robert Glazier told Techwire.net after the system went live last year.
The PERT program cost approximately $7 million and included 35 CalPERS staff and five consultants. CalPERS credited the on-time launch of my|CalPERS to the work of the PERT program; CalPERS estimated that each month’s delay of the new network would result in $4 million of extra costs.
The PERT campaign effort has been nominated for a NASCIO State IT Recognition Award in the category of Cross-Boundary Collaboration and Partnerships. The winners of each category of this award will be announced at the NASCIO 2012 Annual Conference in San Diego on October 21-24.
