LAO issued the report Tuesday, the latest in a phased series of analyses of how Newsom’s proposed budget would affect various state departments, programs and services. The governor proposed his spending plan in January; after lawmakers have a go at it, Newsom will offer a new version called the May Revision. The Legislature will approve the document in June.
EDDNext includes changes related to technology as well as other areas, i.e., redesigning forms to use plain language and make them more relevant; using tools to detect and mitigate cyber attacks; and improving call centers to shorten wait times, streamline business processes and improve interactions with the public. The LAO report comes one year after EDD’s chief information officer, Ajit Girn, was appointed to the department’s top tech role.
The key takeaways from the LAO report are:
- The state has already approved $661 million in spending on EDDNext for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, and is aiming to spend $597 million in the coming fiscal year on the project. LAO recommends continued funding and support for the project, which contains IT and non-IT components.
- That funding should come with new oversight measures — but “without extended encumbrance and expenditure deadlines in 2025-26 and future fiscal years.” The report says reviews of annual budget change proposals (BCPs) without significant reallocations between IT and non-IT projects “will allow the Legislature to better oversee progress towards completion of EDDNext.”
- The Joint Legislative Budget Committee should be notified once CDT approves the readiness of EDDNext’s Integrated Case Management System/Integrated Data Management (ICMS/IDM) proposal, the most complex and expensive IT component within EDDNext. This, the LAO report says, would allow the state to “build in legislative review” of the EDDNext final project plan. “Given the anticipated complexity and cost of the proposed ICMS/IDM IT project and its importance to the EDDNext portfolio, this additional level of legislative review is needed.”
- CDT should provide bimonthly independent project oversight reports on the EDDNext portfolio to keep the scope of work defined. “Bimonthly portfolio-level reporting is already provided by CDT for other comparable IT project portfolios, such as the Department of Health Care Services’ Medi-Cal Enterprise Systems Modernization effort, and would be similarly useful for legislative oversight of EDDNext,” the LAO report says.
- EDD should meet quarterly with CDT, the Department of Finance and legislative staff members to review EDDNext progress. “In particular, quarterly meetings would allow the Legislature to monitor whether the proposed ICMS/IDM IT project is on time, on track and within budget,” the report says.
