In two budget change proposals (BCPs) that arrived shortly after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Jan. 10 release of his proposed 2023-2024 Fiscal Year state budget, the California State Controller’s Office (SCO) seeks nearly $6 million for work related to ongoing modernizations. Among the takeaways:
- The SCO seeks more than $4.8 million over a period from the 2023-2024 Fiscal Year starting July 1 through FY 2027-2028, for “Broadcom Computer Associates Integrated Database Management System (IDMS) software licensing.” The money would come from three sources: more than $2.6 million from the state general fund; more than $1.5 million from the Central Service Cost Recovery Fund (CSRF); and $696,000 from the Special Fund, all with rounding. The money will “fully support the contracted costs” of Broadcom’s IDMS software, including licensing, yearly maintenance and upgrade fees for the central processing unit, plus any applicable administrative fees.
- IDMS, according to the BCP, is a “database management system for mainframes” that dates to the “latter half of the twentieth century.” SCO mission-critical apps that run on the California Department of Technology’s (CDT) mainframe still use IDMS software. SCO is “entirely dependent” on IDMS for “mission-critical fiduciary activities, including personnel administration, payroll, audits and various fiscal functions” but has removed at least eight of 14 core systems from it. However, “many subsystems” still operate on IDMS including the “Local Reimbursement System, the Direct Deposit Claims System and the Medi-Cal Payment Reimbursement System” – and will incur licensing costs and lack SCO support until they’re moved onto a different platform. Until recently, SCO and the California Highway Patrol have shared IDMS costs, but the latter has decommissioned its systems that rely on IDMS. CDT’s five-year contract to use IDMS ended March 31, and it expects the contract renewal costs to rise 10 percent – with SCO now the sole user. Funding the IDMS costs, per the BCP, will let SCO “lock in the negotiated rate” and support its mission-critical apps during migration. Not approving the BCP, conversely, will impact “other SCO mandated activities” as the office absorbs the increased costs, and the lack of support for critical apps will have a “negative statewide impact.”
- The SCO seeks $924,000 in FY 2023-2024 for the “SCO Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) and other annual reports.” The money derives from two sources: $545,000 from the general fund and $379,000 from the CSCRF. It will make six “expiring limited-term” positions permanent, staffed by people who “ensure that all of SCO’s financial reporting functions related to the legacy system are successfully transitioned” to the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal), including the “handling of departmental accounting information and processes” – while using FI$Cal to generate the ACFR, the Budgetary/Legal Basis Annual Report (BLBAR) and other reports.
- Staff completed a variety of tasks related to this during the first year of funding and in the second year are due to finish many more. However, the “level of effort and workload” related to transitioning from “legacy to FI$Cal” was greater than had been thought and now “several tasks are expected to be completed years after they were previously scheduled to have been completed” and related workload has also increased to factor in changes. The funding will help handle the ongoing workload and, after the move to FI$Cal, will facilitate developing a “consolidated timeline to produce the California ACFR, BLBAR and other annual reports” and to ensure legacy financial reporting functions get moved over. The positions will continue to “implement ledger architecture within the FI$Cal system, reconcile year-end balances within the legacy system to FI$Cal departments in order to establish a cutoff of the 2019-2020 year-end balances in both systems, and convert all data from legacy to FI$Cal to support production of parallel versions of both ACFR and BLBAR reports.” Absent funding from the BCP, delinquent and inaccurate financial reports will be unable to be resolved in a timely fashion; SCO will miss deliverable timelines on pension and “other post-employment benefits” reporting; SCO will be unable to implement future standards and will face “further delays to the production of the parallel ACFR and therefore the full implementation of FI$Cal in accordance with” its work plan.
