IT Project Series: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In this series, we’ll look at some of the ongoing IT projects across state government, highlighting their progress — good and bad — and next steps.

The 33 projects currently being monitored by the California Department of Technology’s Office of Statewide Project Delivery (OSPD) Project Approvals and Oversight (PAO) group total a staggering $3,789,588,263.

Eighteen projects are currently listed as on track; seven may soon need corrective action; five are listed as in need of immediate corrective action; and three had no reports available.

Two of the immediate, high-value standouts in this list are the Franchise Tax Board’s (FTB) $766 million Enterprise Data to Revenue 2 (EDR2) project and the California Highway Patrol’s $162.7 million Wireless Mobile Video/Audio Recording System (WMVARS) upgrade.

FTB, according to documents, annually processes some 18 million income tax returns and 1.8 million business returns and collects upward of $93 billion in revenue.

The two-phase FTB project dates back to a 2007 analysis that identified some of the business problems associated with collecting state tax, including the challenges associated with the roughly 17 percent of taxpayers who do not file correctly or require remediation.

Phase one, which consisted of application modeling and case management, was completed in 2016. Phase two “builds on the enterprise data, modeling, and case management platform and infrastructure.” As of February 2024, the project was on track with no indication of missing its June 2026 approved finish date.

For CHP’s part, the WMVARS upgrade project is focused on replacing the existing DVD-based mobile video/audio recording system that dated back to 2009 with a “commercially available, high-resolution recording solution capable of supporting integrated body-worn cameras for all officers. The new solution will allow the CHP to increase in-car usage in enforcement vehicles from 66 percent to 100 percent, including the ability to outfit motorcycles in the future.”

The project was prompted, documents noted, by “high-profile” police incidents at the national level and increasing support for police body-worn cameras. In June 2019, Safe Fleet (formerly Coban Technologies Inc.) was contracted to begin this work. As of November 2022, all “identified vehicles” had been outfitted with WMVARS.

The project was last given positive marks in March 2023 with no indications of missing the January 2026 approved finish date. Independent project oversight reports were concluded in April of the same year with “no pending tasks currently and the low criticality of the remainder of the project.”