Editor’s note: Following is one in an ongoing series of profiles of the largest California state government agencies.
The California Department of Industrial Relations has a budget of $677.42 million for the 2017-2018 fiscal year; $59.15 million of that is allocated to information technology.
The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) is housed within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and protects the health, safety and economic well-being of California’s workers, and helps their employers comply with state labor laws.
James Culbeaux, the department's chief information officer, has been with the department since 1987 and CIO since 2000. Among the large IT projects the DIR has worked on in recent years, he cited a lien fee collection system as part of the Electronic Adjudication Management System in 2013 for the Workers’ Compensation division. That included a new functionality to allow consolidation of liens belonging to providers convicted of fraud, and case unit management for the Special Adjudication Unit.
“[We] successfully processed over 200,000 incoming documents in the last 10 days of June, including over 50,000 documents in the 24 hours leading up to 5 p.m. on June 30, with no major issues,” Culbeaux said. “The Worker’s Compensation Information System’s medical component [also] underwent a major upgrade to support the new release of the national IAIABC standard.” He was referring to the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions.
At the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA), a new Workplace Violence Incident Reporting System went live on June 30 of last year.
“This new system allows hospitals to report incidents of workplace violence to Cal/OSHA online in compliance with a new legislative mandate,” Culbeaux said. “As of December 2017, a total of 3,684 actual incidents were reported, and 472 of 490 hospitals statewide registered in the system.”
Last year, DIR integrated the State Inspection Management System (SIMS) and DIR’s Centralized Accounts Receivable System (CARS). SIMS is used by Cal/OSHA to manage inspections of elevators, amusement rides and tramways.
“Integrating SIMS with CARS builds on the successes of the initial launch of CARS in 2014 and its successful integration with the Pressure Vessel system last year, and helps prepare DIR for the upcoming transition to the state’s new FI$Cal system,” Culbeaux said.
DIR also launched a new cloud-based court case management system for the Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board (OSHAB). The new system, known as the OSHAB Appeals Scheduling and Information System (OASIS), provides calendaring, scheduling and document management functionality.
“This solution provides employers with the convenience of filing and tracking appeal documents electronically, replacing a manual, paper-based mail-in process,” Culbeaux said.
In the division of Apprenticeship Standards, the DIR IT team recently redeveloped an old legacy California Apprenticeship System (CAS) tracking program.
“The upgraded California Apprenticeship System redeveloped by DIR enhanced the existing system to allow for the implementation of expanded apprenticeship programs in emerging and growing industries under the $1.8 million federal Department of Labor ApprenticeshipUSA State Expansion Grant,” Culbeaux said. “The enhancements extend functions of the existing CAS as required by the apprenticeship program expansion and automate the current manual apprenticeship program and apprentice monitoring and tracking functions.” Phase 1 of this project went live in October, with Phase 2 scheduled to follow later this month.
New mandates through SB 1160 require DIR to create systems to collect Utilization Review (UR) and Doctor’s First Report of Injury (DFR) data electronically. The UR project has received approval through the California Department of Technology’s Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) and is in development, according to Culbeaux. The DFR project has received approval for two out of four stages.
“DIR will be executing the DFR project,” Culbeaux said. “This will be completed by internal DIR staff on existing infrastructure already in use by similar projects.”
Executive Director, DIR — Christine Baker
DIRInfo@dir.ca.gov
(916) 274-5751
CIO — James Culbeaux
jculbeaux@dir.ca.gov
